Students band together after word got out that the beloved reuse centre on campus may shut down.
A group of Concordia students have formed a coalition to raise funds and awareness to save the Concordia University Centre for Creative Reuse (CUCCR) from shutting down.
The CUCCR’s current contract with Concordia University, which ensures funding for the centre, is up for renewal in April 2025. There is a possibility that Concordia will not renew the contract next year due to budget cuts.
The CUCCR was founded by Anna Timm-Bottos and Arien Weeks in March 2017, becoming Canada’s first university reuse centre.
“We’ve been able to do incredible metrics,” Timm-Bottos said.
In the past seven years, the centre has diverted 35 metric tonnes of usable materials from going to landfills. It has also saved Concordia students over $380,000 because students can take anything from the centre for free.
Concordia University’s Sustainability Action Plan has outlined five-year plans for different aspects of sustainability on campus. CUCCR plays an integral role in its zero waste plan, as its purpose is to reroute materials that would otherwise be headed to landfills into the hands of students who can use them.
This fall, seven Concordia students founded the coalition Students for the Centre for Creative Reuse (SFCUCCR) when they heard rumours that the CUCCR’s two-year contract with Concordia University might not be renewed in the next academic year.
“I heard about the possible closure of the CUCCR because I was volunteering here, and I was like, I have to do something about that,” said Jonah Doniewski, one of the founding members of SFCUCCR.
CUCCR is a resource used by all students for all kinds of purposes, from finding class materials to decorating their apartments.
“I think it’s a really cool thing that they’re doing,” said Bianca Matei, a sociology and anthropology student at Concordia.
While Matei was at the centre searching for scrapbook supplies, she found an old perfume bottle that was identical to a $40 one she was looking at for her friend’s birthday. She had been worried about the price tag for the gift.
“But then I found this, and I was like, wait, this is free!” she said eagerly.
“This is one of the better sustainability organizations at Concordia, mainly because it’s actionable sustainability,” said Doniewski, referring to the concrete nature of CUCCR’s mission. “To not fund something like that seems really ridiculous to me, so we’re trying to stop that from happening.”
The SFCUCCR has created an appeal form to encourage the university to sign another contract with the centre so that it can stay open.
So far, the group has gathered 1,500 signatures and 600 testimonials from Concordia students demonstrating their support for the centre. However, as Doniewski points out, renewing the contract is only a temporary solution.
“It’s also kind of a band-aid fix because even if they do renew it, that’s still a temporary contract, and they might just not renew it again in two years,” he said.
SFCUCCR is planning to collect funding so that the centre’s fate is not solely held in the hands of the university.
“Essentially, what we are doing is trying to raise enough funding to keep [the CUCCR] alive,” Doniewski explained. The coalition will host an art market on Nov. 19, where student artists can sell their art made from materials provided by the CUCCR. A portion of the profits will be donated to support the centre. This is one of many events the coalition has in the works to support this beacon of actionable sustainability on campus.
