This month marks the 1 year anniversary of S.O.U.L Store, a free store in Paonia built from reclaimed and donated materials by community members Cara Judea Alhadeff and Wild. "S.O.U.L is an acronym for Shared Opportunity Used Local", says Cara. The space was in response to an intersection in Paonia known as an unofficial spot for dropping off unwanted items. Wild says, "The town came and put up a no dumping sign. People kept doing it. They kept leaning it against the no dumping sign. So the police came and put up a surveillance camera to try to start catching people. And I'm thinking, we're going to catch our elderly and what, scold them? Really, that's what it came from." S.O.U.L Store has become a community gathering space. Anywhere between 50-100 people now stop by on a daily basis. According to Wild "There's people that come to sort stuff. There's people that come to look for certain things. There's people who come to drop things off. Sometimes someone's dropping it off and before it hits the ground somebody's picking it up. It's really a trading space." Cara adds, "Yeah, it's an attempt to build more of an explicit mutual aid economy in the face of the onslaught of capitalism and onslaught of seeing objects and often people as they fabricate and then dispose of those objects as waste. And then how are we going to redefine that in a really active, relational way?"
This year Wild bought the warehouse space next to S.O.U.L Store and is turning it into a community makers space. "It's not maybe what you'd think of where you rent an hour and you come in and there's a CNC machine that you can rent and do. It's more about coming in and finding collaborative opportunities. If it's sharing tools, if it's sharing ideas or materials." On Saturday from 10-4 Paonia Makers will celebrate its grand opening with demonstrations from 7 makers and opportunities for education and collaboration. Cara Says, "We'll have upcycling demonstrations, for example, so that, in terms of What does this mean where people are stepping forward? How could this element from this object that's going to go to landfill be used in a completely unexpected way to make our home a real home? Where does beauty come in? And beauty is essential to this process. It's not just about reusing for the sake of reusing or keeping things out of landfill. It has to do with care and respect and aesthetics and, um, deepen our own sense of integrity, in particularly in a place like Paonia, where we really do know each other. This is an intentional community in many ways, and to really enhance this kind of economics where oikos means home." In terms of the future of SOUL Space, that's up to the community. Feedback can be shared through the SOUL Store Survey with QR codes to the survey posted around Paonia. "It would be wonderful if people could fill that out, because that may then lead to town support or even state support. So we can really get this this idea out to other communities and also make what we have stronger."
To find out more about the survey look for the QR codes posted around Paonia , S.O.U.L Store or Paonia Makers email menageriewoodworking@gmail.com
