Donation Reminders & Guidelines

We have been getting an unusually high volume of donations in September. We want to thank the generosity of our community - your supplies are going to many people who wouldn't be able to afford them! However, we did want to put out some reminders as we have been getting a lot of donations of items we don't accept. Please make sure to always look over our List of Accepted Items before donating. Some key items we have been noticing that have been regularly donated from items we don't accept include:

• Home decor, collectibles, and game pieces - even though you think an artist may be able to use parts, we don't have the storage space for these items and people are not coming to our shop to find these items. These are better suited at other thrift stores in the city.
• Holiday decor or holiday related items, especially items related to Christmas - since we are a small shop we don't have space to hang on to seasonal items for most of the year and would prefer to leave shelf space for year round products like general art supplies.
• Substances that don't have any product labels - this one is especially harmful to our volunteer, as we don't know if powders/liquids are toxic or dangerous! These items have to go straight in the trash for the health and safety of our volunteers.
• Broken clothing and jewelry - our volunteer team does not have the capacity to tear down supplies for usable parts. If you want to donate fabric from clothing or jewelry pieces, please take the time to break those down into usable parts before you donate them.

As well, we have instituted new Donation Guidelines on our List of Accepted Items page:

• Donations should be limited to no more than ONE banker's box per household per Saturday. You can still contact us for any larger donations, but response times may vary as we are volunteer run.
• Volunteers have the right to refuse any donations for any reason.

We would appreciate smaller quantities of donations coming in, as lately we have been getting multiple people donating five or more large boxes of items every Saturday. Some Saturdays when we have a lot of volunteer force we can sometimes manage, but some Saturdays we have a small team. If you have never visited our shop, we highly encourage visiting the shop FIRST before making any donations. 

Thanks to your attention to our donation policies and guidelines.

10th Anniversary Celebration

Hi Reusers, 

Did you know? On September 25, 2015, RASE officially opened our first shop. After three locations, a global pandemic, growing pains, and moments of great joy, we have survived 10 years as an organization. 

To help celebrate this amazing milestone, we wanted to prepare a little celebration with our favourite people. That's right, it's you! We are inviting you to our 10th Anniversary Craft Social and Party on Saturday, October 18 from 7:00-10:00pm at our current location (1761 Wallace Street). We will have crafting activity stations and more to be announced but this will mostly be a time to socialize and celebrate. We are excited to gather with you all to toast to our growing reuse community in Regina!

You don't need to RSVP and this event is free, but we strongly recommend you fill in our Google Form RSVP to let us know if you are coming. It will help us prepare the right amount of food, activity stations, capacity needs, and more while also allowing us to send reminders to anyone who is interested in coming: RSVP Form. 

Also, you may have noticed the little cutie on our invitation. We are super proud to launch the new RASE mascot! This critter was designed by the wonderful Terri Lemire (who also happens to be one of our stellar volunteers). This raccoon inspired mascot is making off with all the precious arts and craft supplies from our shop! Catch 'em if you can! From now until the 10th anniversary party we are asking our reusers for name suggestions. You can suggest a name by commenting on our social media posts, filling in a comment in the RSVP form, emailing us at artsupplyexchange@gmail.com, and we will also have a place to offer suggestions at our party. We will take all of the names provided and our current volunteers will vote on our favourites. Go give Terri some love on Instagram and definitely hire her for your illustration work!

Thanks to all the volunteers, shoppers, donators, and supporters for 10 amazing years. I look forward to celebrating together on October 18!

Sincerely, 

Erika Folnović

Executive Director 

RASE Fall 2025 Open Days

Hi Reusers! Below are our open days for September - December 2025. We will typically be closed once a month from September - December, except for September when we are going to try to be open every week. We will be CLOSED: October 11, November 15, and December 27. All other Saturdays we will do our best to be open, but as a reminder we are completely volunteer run and people get sick or emergencies happen. If we need to close for any reason, we will do our best to post on social media and our website here for unexpected closures. As we all start to head indoors and hibernate over the winter, we wish for you a very crafty fall and most artsy holiday season!

Use Front Door + No Big Donations on Aug 23rd

The alleyway construction continues for August 23rd. Our backdoor is where customers typically access our primary entrance to the shop at the rear of our building.

Today (August 23rd) only, please use the front door to park and access the shop. 

We would also appreciate it if you held off on any large donations due to this work. Our rear entrance is the closest and easiest to access the area of our shop and is at ground level. Our volunteer team is again small today, and they can not be frequently taken away from the floor to help customers bring in donations from the front.

Thanks for your attention to this change in procedures.

Use Front Door August 16th

We have been informed there is construction taking place today in our alleyway, which is how customers typically access our primary entrance to the shop at the rear of our building.

Today (August 16th) only, please use the front door to park and access the shop. 

We would also appreciate it if you held off on any large donations due to this work. Our rear entrance is the closest and easiest to access area to our shop and is at ground level. Our volunteer team is also small today, and they can not be frequently taken away from the floor to help customers bring in donations from the front.

Thanks for your attention to this change in procedures.

RASE Summer 2025 Open Days

Hi Reusers! Below are our open days for May - August 2025. 

We are excited to announce we will be at the Cathedral Village Arts Festival Street Fair for our first time. Our executive director is typically busy promoting for her fulltime job at the fair and we have historically closed this day for volunteers to enjoy the festival. However, our volunteers have stepped up to run the booth! We will be running our typical fill-a-bag system but just bringing our fabrics. We hope you can stop in to our booth #105 on Saturday, May 24 between 10am-5pm between Angus Street and Albert Street. Come say, "Hi!" 

Besides, May 24 when the shop will be closed for the Street Fair, we will be closed once a month from May - August. We will be CLOSED: May 17, June 28, July 19, and August 2. All other Saturdays we will do our best to be open, but as a reminder we are completely volunteer run and people get sick or emergencies happen. If we need to close for any reason, we will do our best to post on social media and our website here for unexpected closures.

We hope you have a wonderful summer. Enjoy the beautiful weather and temperatures, while getting artsy and craftsy, too!