16: A discussion on the “intersection of consumption and climate” with Julie Kearns, who will reflect on what Junket has taught her about the issue of home goods waste (6:30 p.m. The store celebrates with daily deals and in-store events beginning Thursday, November 16 and running throughout the weekend, culminating with a birthday party on Saturday. “I see brokenness as opportunity for repair instead of death sentence.” “I get excited about having others embrace the beauty that comes with patina and time,” Kearns says. The bulk of the store’s secondhand goods are plucked directly from the waste stream-such as goods that are leftover when estate sales have ended-when they would otherwise be headed for the landfill. The store’s sourcing has also changed, from sourcing pieces from dozens of vendors to taking more control over the sourcing process, filling the space with the best products for the shop. ![]() ![]() When it was founded, Kearns says it has evolved from “operating from the vague conceptual notion that ‘refuse is good for the planet’ to having a data-driven understanding that extending the life of goods that already exist is an important social response to climate change.” Junket’s mission is to make that social response more fun, satisfying, and solution-oriented. Over the years, the store has also honed in on its mission. ![]() In the five years since, the store has expanded to 3,000 square feet and is now open regular daily hours. She opened Junket: Tossed and Found on Novemin a 900-square-foot space that was open two weekends a month. So she decided to combat the problem head-on by starting a business that helped get useful goods back into homes.Īfter holding a successful vintage sale out of her house, she was confident that she could more than cover the costs of renting a small retail space. “The volume I saw of everything in this waste stream, day in and day out, made it impossible to ignore the scale of this issue,” she says. “But the work felt meaningless.”ĭuring this time, she saw firsthand how many useful goods were literally being thrown away or packed onto trucks for export to merchants in third world countries. “I had achieved what I thought I wanted: Life without a boss,” she says. While she loved being her own boss, she needed more-and she was beginning to get burnt out. At the same time, she embraced the practices of consigning and thrifting as her post-pregnancy weight fluctuated, and in the process, she learned there was money to be made in the secondhand industry.įast forward to 2012, Kearns was self-employed, selling clothing via consignment and online while hosting on Airbnb to make ends meet. The idea for Junket came to Kearns as she underwent a series of major life changes in 2009, when the newly single mother was seeking a more flexible job than her corporate management job offered. ![]() The store was founded with the sustainable mission of repurposing, upcycling, and extending the lifecycle of home goods-and to empower customers to reuse creatively by offering creative workshops. Located within the south Minneapolis vintage hub known as the Minnehaha Mile, Junket helps useful, well-made goods avoid the trash heap by fixing and repurposing them. It’s been five years since Julie Kearns brought her vision for Junket: Tossed and Found to life. By Jahna Peloquin (images courtesy Junket)
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