I first met Lela Means and Christina Gilyutin one blustery Sunday in December 2023 at the Divisadero Farmers’ Market, which sets up in the San Francisco Department of Motor Vehicles parking lot.
They were a few weeks into running their new stand, Strange Exchange, and my curiosity was piqued by the eclectic spread of goods they were offering.
Assorted art supplies. Magazines. Jewelry, broken and intact. Random accessories. Gardening equipment. Loose bits of hardware. What on earth is this, I asked. We’re a community reshuffling hub, they told me. Everything here is free!
Tell me more, I said!
I have since had the pleasure of seeing their wonderful initiative grow and transform into a beloved local establishment, supported by an extensive community of Strange Exchangers and Lela and Christina’s dedication and love, and I would like to share the magic with you.
Lela and Christina’s friendship began several years ago while working for the same nonprofit. They discovered a shared interest in decluttering and reducing waste, which they longed to extrapolate to a larger community. A kernel of an idea to help people share small, useful items which may otherwise be thrown away led to a successful pilot exchange at Christina’s block party. Soon after the pair set up their stall at the farmers’ market.
Christina came up with the term “reshuffling” because it felt fresh and on-point, and she felt “recycling” had developed unreliable connotations. Everyone has a junk drawer at home, right? They say that one man’s trash is another man’s treasure, and this is the crux of Strange Exchange. Christina’s mantra is “It was never trash to begin with. Someone just didn’t see the value in it.”
Every Sunday, Lela, Christina, and a small group of volunteers collect donations at their stall and record the weight to quantify the impact they’re having. Any items that visitors don’t absorb go into Lela’s garage for storage until the following week’s market, or until they’re donated to one of Strange Exchange’s nonprofit partners, which include Scrap, Larkin Street Youth Services, Lions Club, Humangood.org, Muttville, and the Haight Ashbury Food Program.
In just over a year, Strange Exchange has successfully reshuffled nearly 3,500 pounds of donations, but the impact goes beyond the physical reshuffling of ‘junk’ items. The magic is in the people involved and the moments of serendipitous joy they feel when they realize they can take things for free while contributing to a good cause.
Individuals also help redistribute items. One lady collects donations for residents of single room occupancy (SRO) hotels in the Tenderloin who are on such limited income that they don’t have money for anything other than food and rent. Someone else works with incarcerated people with mental illness and brings them magazines and colored pencils.
Particularly special for me, on a day that I volunteered at the stand, I saw a lady wearing a pair of earrings I had donated only the week before. Those earrings had been sitting in a box for about eight years, and she was equally as excited to share with me how much she loved them.
Visitors to the stand sometimes stumble across the very thing they were planning to buy that day or week. No need to buy an entire pack of new screws when you’ve found the two you need for free! Other times, found items will provoke people’s creativity, like the woman who used berry baskets as party favor containers at her daughter’s strawberry-themed birthday. One little girl comes regularly to look for fabric scraps she can collect to make wonderful shoulder bags. Leftover greeting cards remind people to write to loved ones.
The magic is on the giving side too. People often stick around after dropping off donations, and if someone takes them, they start up a conversation. One week an older lady gave away some jewelry and expressed her surprise and joy to the young man whom she later saw wearing it!
Through their efforts, Lela and Christina have created meaningful change within the community. They see many of the same faces every week coming back to donate, collect, or simply have a conversation. Many people have established a deep connection with the exchange and think about it as they’re living their lives, planning to bring their things to the stand.
Although Strange Exchange has now become bigger than these two women, it exists as a product of an immense amount of their work, dedication, and creativity: five or six hours at the stall every Sunday, then another 10 or more per week dealing with items and delivering them to partners, plus managing their online presence and volunteers.
It truly is a labor of love. On behalf of the local community, thank you, Lela and Christina.
And to everyone else: come bring your useful “junk,” seek out a treasure, and soak up a bit of the Strange Exchange magic!
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