Julie Shay found a remedy for our throw-away culture. Shay takes things that people don’t want and gets them to people who need them. Trash, it turns out, inspired her to form Good Neighbors Group in 2006 out of her west Severna Park neighborhood. It has since grown into a network of more than 500 volunteers. They step in before people take items to the landfill that others could put to good use. It’s all part of a greater mission to strengthen communities and help the environment.
“My least favorite thing is people just driving a truck of stuff to the dump when somebody can find a home for it,” she says. “Good Neighbors Group became popular and people started dropping things off at my house and I ended up with a stoop full of things because they knew I could find a good home for them.”
Shay first saw the potential for turning someone’s trash into someone else’s treasure when her husband served in the Air Force and they were living in Panama.
“In Panama, people are also just so much more creative with re-use,” Shay says. “The base was being turned over to the Panamanians, so a lot of stuff was going to go into warehouses and never going to be seen again or was getting thrown away. So, I found stuff some schools could use.”
She still uses those same ideas and methods today for salvaging and distributing useful items both locally and to other countries. Shay sends sports-related apparel and equipment and school supplies, including children’s books and educational games, to both Honduras and Guatemala. Her organization has also provided beds so children don’t have to sleep on dirt floors.
“We only try to send things that would be prohibitively expensive for them there,” Shay says.
Back home, Good Neighbors Group partners with businesses and such as Bay Radiology, Café Mezzanotte, and Severna Park Family & Cosmetic Dentistry, and nonprofits including Hope For All, Orphan Grain Train, and Annapolis Light House.
“I have a trusted relationship with a variety of people and organizations,” Shay says. “When they hit their limit with resources, they know they can reach out to Good Neighbors, so we can rally our community to help out in some way.”
Jennifer Haber, a Good Neighbors Group board member, says one of Shay’s best ideas was a food drive. And it was a big one.
“She has a captain for basically every neighborhood in Severna Park,” Haber explains of the Super Bowl Food Drive. “It’s a friendly neighborhood competition to see who can gather up the most food for food banks.”
The 54-year-old Shay feels working with local dentists (which donate hygienic items) and radiology labs in Severna Park rank among their most valuable associations.
“[The radiologists] have an ongoing collection of gently used bras from women who come in for mammograms,” she says. “The bras are distributed to women who are homeless or in shelters. People realize those are things women need. Bras are extremely expensive.”
Good Neighbors Group also helps individuals with an urgent need through cooperating organizations.
“There was someone who needed toys for a child with developmental delay,” she recalls. “People in my community are always getting rid of toys. So, I put out a call for toys for a child about a year old and I got them to the case manager.
“There was a woman who had a dog and she needed food for herself and dog food,” she adds. “I put a message out to the community for people to donate food toward her and her dog.”
Shay’s volunteers also stage events that promote her nonprofit’s mission. Besides its Super Bowl Food Drive, Good Neighbors Group puts on the Artisan Bazaar, which showcases local and fair-trade artists and crafters with a focus on upcycled and handmade items, and the Severna Park Earth Day Festival. The Artisan Bazaar features local sellers and beverages and promotes buying with minimal waste.
Shay, who used to be a physical therapist, does all this pro bono, though the time she puts into it amounts to a full-time job.
“I have thought about not doing it because it is time consuming and sometimes messy,” she admits. “My basement still has stuff I am trying to find the right home for, and things can get extremely challenging. But then I think, ‘If I end the organization, I am just going to be doing this same thing anyway.’ It’s just in me to jump in.”
For more information about Good Neighbors Group, visit goodneighborsgroup.org.