The Scrap Box is a scrappy fighter. It’s been around over thirty years, and we’ve neglected to chronicle its many moves and its ups and downs (though a 2001 Ann Arborite column about its founder Karen Ensminger, written shortly after it moved to its 10,000-square-foot space on State Circle, covers some of that territory). Ensminger, still the director of the program she founded in the early 1980s, says the nonprofit is, as usual, “hanging on by its fingernails,” but she and the board of directors are optimistic enough to have recently launched an Indiegogo campaign to raise $27,500 for a new van. “Every once in awhile I hear people say, ‘I hear you went out of business,’ but it’s not true.” With two classrooms, “We do a lot of workshops for school field trips, but with all the budget crunches a lot of schools have cut out field trips, period. We’ve had to rely more on sales” of its unique and peculiar mix of beads, paper, and a lot of foam.

Where do they get all that stuff? Unlike the PTO Thrift Shop and Recycle Ann Arbor, which get most of their goods from household castoffs, the Scrap Box gets most of its merchandise from industrial overflow. “We have an employee whose job is to go trucking around” finding that stuff.

His name is Charlie Willard, a former IT employee of Borders. “I’m the scrap man!” he says. His predecessor at the Scrap Box had a colorful reputation for Dumpster diving, but Willard clarifies that neither he nor his predecessor ever pulled anything out of a Dumpster to sell at the Scrap Box. “It was only to see what kind of stuff companies were throwing out, but nowadays you can’t do that because of security cameras.”

Ensminger walks around, pointing out the highlights. It operates like any retail store. Anyone can come in and nose around. There are always plenty of beads and rocks. They got a lifetime supply when Akasha Crystals was acquired by an Ohio company and closed its downtown showroom. There’s also a lot of fancy paper from Susan Butler’s Creative Papers, which used to be on Airport Blvd. At the moment, there are framing supplies from the Frame Factory, which just went out of business. She points out a roll of foam–“I think it was insoles for tennis shoes”–and a large bin of yellow foam disks. “They’re air filters for lawn mowers. Once in awhile we have to pull a kid out of there.”

Can households donate stuff too? “Hmmm, let’s see, what do I want to admit to taking?” she laughs. “Sewing notions, craft supplies, pinecones, sea shells.” After all these years, she says, “I don’t like to sort.” That’s done by volunteers.

The Scrap Box, 581 State Cir., 994-0012. Tues.-Fri. 10 a.m.-5 p.m., Sat. 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Closed Sun. & Mon. scrapbox.org. No donations the first week of the month.