St. Vincent de Paul turns old into new

St .Vincent de Paul's goes after the hip kids with recycled designs.

Re-use stores collect tons of goods each year donated by well-meaning closet cleaners. Among those items are often old books well-beyond their years of usefulness. Rather than pitching the un-saleable items, the Society of St. Vincent de Paul is turning outdated book covers into new products.

The old book covers are turned into a new line of gift bags, notebooks, folders and purses by a handful of individuals receiving services from the Bay Area organization.

The first products on store shelves during the recent holiday season generated a few hundred dollars worth of revenue for St. Vincent de Paul. While that may not be much, for now, it’s a positive start, said Philip Arca, executive director of St. Vincent de Paul.

“I tell people we’re an older fuddy-duddy organization reinventing ourselves,” Arca said.

Part of that reinvention comes in overhauling its thrift store business to appeal to the “hipper” customers moving into its East Oakland neighborhood. The pilot phase of the program was funded by Alameda County’s Stopwaste.org program, which provided a $43,000 grant for labor costs. Target (NYSE: TGT) recently announced it has agreed to underwrite an Artist in Residence session, Arca said.

The St. Vincent de Paul thrift store shares its building with Habitat for Humanity’s Re-Store, which sells reclaimed doors, windows, lumber, and other household items.

The duo is hoping to bring in a third tenant — a deconstruction company — to create a “re-use shopping mall,” Arca said.