Early Tuesday morning, a warehouse located at 14310 Hamilton Ave in Highland Park caught fire. The space, home to several companies, was completely destroyed.
A local favorite, Reclaim Detroit (RD) was one of the hardest hit residents. The company, a non profit that reclaims and repurposes otherwise useless raw materials from the city’s abandoned buildings, and even revamps artifacts like the old squash courts from the DAC, lost their expansive collection in the fire.
According to their Facebook page, the company was founded in 2011 as a part of EcoWorks’s deconstruction efforts, and was kick-started by job training through Detroit GreenWorks Solutions job training collaborative which includes WARM Training Center, Southwest Solutions, Henry Ford Community College, The Greening of Detroit and the Detroit Department of Workforce Development.
Their primary objective is to change the city’s mind on Deconstruction in Detroit by offering the same service at comparable costs to Demolition.
However, with the tragic loss of their storage warehouse, mill shop, and showroom, those efforts have come to a screeching halt.
According to their recently launched crowdfunding campaign, the fire wiped out evenything, leaving only “ashes–and our fighting spirit.”
It’s not the first time their will has been tested, but they vow to continue their mission of turning blight into value. Their work is important because it creates jobs for Detroiters, diverts massive amounts of waste from landfills, and preserves the relics of Detroit’s past that would otherwise go to waste.
Now the company is humbly asking for help to continue their work. According to their crowdfunding page:
We are estimating the full cost of recovery at nearly $500,000, and this does not include all of the lost income from being out of work. Insurance will help with a small portion of this, but purchasing scores of new machines, finding a new home, and rebuilding all of our infrastructure will take a much greater investment. We will get there. Our first priority is to support our staff throughout the recovery. Your donations for will directly benefit Reclaim employees and their families over the next several months.
To support this wonderful organization through this incredibly challenging time, make a donation on their crowdfunding page today.
For more on the company, check out this video.