The most important thing to know about George Hunt is that he’s an artist.
The Lumberton native escaped homelessness, learned to read in his 50s, enrolled at Central Piedmont Community College, and eventually reconnected with family that thought he was dead for 15 years. But as he leans across a chipped and peeling picnic table at the corner of 15th and North Caldwell streets, shyly raising his voice just enough to be heard over the staccato pop of police sirens and the dull thud of Nelly’s “Country Grammar” drifting from across the block, what he wants to talk about is painting.
“See his shirt?” He gestures to the T-shirt of the bespectacled man standing beside him, emblazoned with the silhouette of a lone wolf howling at the moon. “I made that. I did that.” The lines of Hunt’s stoic face rearrange themselves as he breaks into a boyish grin.
The man in the T-shirt is Jack Ritterskamp. Ritterskamp and his wife Julie met Hunt while volunteering at the Free Store, which is based out of a small teal house on North Caldwell Street. Julie tutored Hunt until he was ready to pursue his GED, Jack helped him rediscover his love of art, and the three still meet regularly at the weathered picnic table out front. Their efforts helped Hunt find a job and a home.
Part mission, part movement, the Free Store is a place where people give what they can, take what they need and form friendships often unheard of in a neighborhood marked by the tensions of gentrification. And now the Free Store is in flux.
The concept for the Free Store began with a small group of volunteers working out of a house on Parkwood Avenue in 2010. Though hindered by disorganization and problems with neighborhood theft, the idea piqued the interest of Charlotte attorney Robert Forquer. “It was the community coming together, exchanging things and ideas to build people’s lives,” he says. People with unwanted clothing and household items brought donations and others simply took what they needed — no money exchanged, no questions asked.
Forquer stepped in to organize — maintaining the original concept but replacing the “piles of stuff” with seasonally appropriate donations on tidy shelves — and soon moved it to its current location: the teal house adjacent to, but owned by, the hodgepodge of art studios and small businesses known as Area 15. In September, Area 15’s owner made the decision to lease the Free Store’s building to a pizza restaurant, so Forquer decided to relocate the store to another space within the Area 15 warehouse.
The new tenant is sensitive to displacing the Free Store, and Forquer says that the locally sourced, farm-to-table pizzeria will have a positive impact on Area 15. But some of its regulars are still apprehensive.
“It’s kind of hard,” Hunt says, watching a volunteer help a young mother down the painted brick steps with a box of children’s clothes and diapers. “It feels like home here.”
In its new space — slated to open once Pure Pizza begins moving into the North Caldwell Street house this month — the Free Store will add hours of operation, relying on volunteers of Charlotte 24-7, the neighboring “urban prayer room,” to keep the doors open Monday through Saturday, 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. As the nights grow colder, Charlotte 24-7 staff hopes to add evening hours for both the prayer room and the Free Store.
The tenet of the Free Store — come as you are, take what you need, sit down and stay awhile — is unconventional and, at times, baffling. Would-be volunteers regularly email Forquer looking for lists of specific needs, only to be told to “just come and be.” But it’s working. Jack Ritterskamp estimates that since the Free Store opened two years ago, 10 of its homeless customers, including Hunt, are no longer homeless.
“It’s actually not about the stuff,” Forquer says. “People are important. Things aren’t. We want for people who have little to realize that their value is not based on how little they have and for people with a lot to realize that their value is not based on how much they have.”
This article appears in Oct 9-15, 2013.
Sarah –
As the owner of Pure Pizza, I really appreciate your article about the Free Store to bring citywide awareness to the great things that are happening at Area 15.
I also really enjoyed our conversation on the phone when you called to ask about us opening our second location in Optimist Park. However, I’m a little disappointed the article left out so much of the information we talked about. It’s a little disheartening reading the article bc the slant could appear that our team is coming in to gentrify and displace the neighbors in the neighborhood. And that is absolutely not the case.
What was not mentioned in this article are a few things:
The community garden the Pure Pizza team started – It’s not a garden for our purposes, but rather for the neighbors of Area 15. We have been weekly participants of the Sunday food distribution – which operates out of the Free Store kitchen currently – and the fall planting of lettuce, cabbage, kale & herbs will be used in the weekly meals served to the Sunday guest. We are also there on site on Sundays to serve the guests who come to eat at the gathering. And we are working with the group to ensure there is access to our kitchen on Sunday’s once we occupy – as not to disrupt the weekly service event.
We have been bringing food donations weekly to the Free Store for the Men’s Bible Study. And I’m there several days a week to help volunteer at both the Free Store and the Urban Prayer Room.
We’ve started conversations with the pastor if the Urban Prayer Rooms homeless ministry about providing work opportunities as we are moving towards opening.
Additionally, our goal in the spring is to work with our urban & local farming community to have a unique farmers market bc it is important to us is to bring access to fresh, local food to the Optimist Park food desert.
Lastly, the Free Store is literally moving 10 feet (2 doors down) on the same block – so while there may be a sentimental value to the “house” – the amazing concept & community and essence of the Free Store is not moving or changing.
Thank you again for the awareness of the Free Store – just wish the full store of the relationship between Pure Pizza, the Free Store & Area 15 was articulated.
Juli Ghazi
Owner
Pure Pizza
Thanks for your comments, Juli. As you know, the full scope of Area 15 is far too rich to be boiled down into a single story. And while there are many stories to be told here, my focus was primarily on the individuals of the Free Store–including their apprehensions. I look forward to seeing this unique area evolve and I know many are appreciative of your input and sensitivity throughout the transition, as noted in the article.
Hi Sara-
There were also quite a lot of mistakes in facts about the Charlotte Free Store in your article.
A bunch of friends/cohorts and I actually started the “RRFM” (Really Really Free Market) in Progress Park, next door to the future location of the first Charlotte Free Store in 2007. Carlos Espin, owner of the future storefront and current location (and Area 15 as a whole) then offered us the store to use a year after seeing us weekly at our location in Progress Park.
The store was not, contrary to your article, lumps of clothing. Our crew and local volunteers worked tirelessly to sort and organize the donations which came in fast and in large amount. We had a library room in the back, and racks and shelves of clothing in the front. There were food donation days, and music gathering nights.
While I understand your article was quick and dirty and not able to express all of this, it would really be appreciated if you straightened out some of these facts.
Though the Free Store was handed off by its original creators to the community around 2010, that was NOT the start of the project by any means.
Thanks,
Hana Blumenfeld