One of the days before Kiaya Gable officially opened DIY Craft & Thrift three years ago, a woman stopped by the store with a very specific query.
She was looking for a tiny pom pom, less than a centimeter in diameter, to fit atop the nutcracker her father had made her decades ago.
In less than a minute, Gable presented the woman — her first customer — with exactly what she sought. She refused to let her pay for the small item, instead gifting it with a smile.
Anywhere else, the woman would have needed to purchase a whole bag of pom poms just for the single one she needed.
“Sustainability, for us, is more about not buying things from far away,” Gable said. “It’s about using what’s local and asking around. It’s the regift and the rethink and repair aspect of the 7-Rs of waste management that we’re trying to use.”
With that overarching goal in mind, Gable is embarking on a new chapter for her creative reuse shop, which has been a haven for Concord crafters. The storefront will close at the end of the month as she transitions the business to a nonprofit, with the goal of opening a smaller, more manageable space in the fall.
“I realized that [sustainability] applies to the people here, too. If the workload is unsustainable, I shouldn’t be trying to sustain it and burning myself out,” she said.
When she first opened the store in the old CVS building downtown, her retail shelves only took up a quarter of the space. But as time went on and demand grew, the supplies spread across the rest of the floor.
DIY began hosting crafting groups and classes, eventually even housing local artist stalls in one section of the store.
It was not the hole-in-the-wall shop Gable had envisioned, but she and her team of friends who help staff the place adapted to the ever-growing community passion for what they had to offer.
“I love it, and it’s not going to die,” she said. “It’s just going to change forms. We’re going to do a little chrysalis period and, hopefully, come out a butterfly.”
Gable has only ever taken home a few paychecks from the store. Revenue goes towards paying overhead and compensating her staff. The hours have proven longer and more grueling than she imagined, with hardly any time left during the week for her to hang out with her 14-year-old son.
A smaller space and a nonprofit funding model will allow her to bring on volunteers and a board of directors and alleviate some of the pressure.
“Our kind of big goal for ourselves is to make art our full-time passion again and make DIY our volunteer gig, part-time thing,” said Gable. “We can pursue grant money and loans differently and other such kind of programs than we couldn’t before.”
The nonprofit will also connect with people beyond the Concord area, Gable said. She wants whatever future location she has to serve as a resource for people across the state. Eventually, she dreams of opening up creative reuse stores in the North Country and the Monadnock region, to give all Granite Staters access to low-cost, sustainable craft materials.
She’s hoping to stay in Concord, but that will depend on available retail spaces. To manage the store’s current needs, 4000 square feet feels right, she said.
“It’s about the size and having parking, because so many, many of our customers are elderly or disabled, having that accessibility is super important to us,” she said.
Ever since opening its doors, DIY has shaped itself into a third space promoting inclusion for everyone. Gable, who grew up moving around a lot, hadn’t experienced a physical, consistent sense of local community like that before.
“People making art and coming in and showing me what they’ve made from stuff has been a gift,” she said. “People making friends here, people donating things and then seeing it built into something else has been wonderful.”
That connectivity and camaraderie won’t disappear, even once DIY is no longer in the old CVS building. Gable plans to keep posting on social media and elevating other community businesses and endeavors. She said she will update her customer base as soon as she has news to share about the nonprofit formation and a new space.
Beyond that, the summer will allow her time for her art, which she intends to share as part of the Concord Arts Market’s Art in the Park.
As DIY Craft & Thrift prepares to close at the end of May, customers have the opportunity to buy items as part of a bag sale. There will be more discounts in the coming two weeks, Gable said, and then the rest will go into storage until the time comes to move into a new location.
“It’s time to reimagine and repair and rebuild it into something much, much better and much better suited for what the needs of our community are, which is a third community space that is arts focused, [where] the profit isn’t in the people, it’s in the materials,” she said.
