U Call, We'll Haul gives new life to old stuff
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James Wallace, owner of U Call, We'll Haul, delivers a cabinet to Glade Run Lutheran Services in Zelienople on Jan. 18.
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In 2007, James Wallace got a small pickup truck and began wading into the world of other people's waste. He started in his native Beaver Falls, renting first one small garage and then another. He began trolling other towns on their garbage nights and graduated from scrap to usable items, like refrigerators.
The next year, he incorporated as U Call, We'll Haul and began getting jobs that were really heavy, emotionally and physically.
He hauled from homes that were foreclosed on, and from businesses that were downsizing, merging, outsourcing or dying. He purchased the 30,000-square-foot warehouse of the former Mayer China Co. on Sixth Street and began expanding his fleet of trucks to the current 10.
And for each haul-away his company got paid to do, he began seeking the needs of shoestring nonprofits that do work he values.
"We want to make sure as much stuff as possible gets a second or third life," he said. "I started learning about recycling, metals, commodities and it dawned on me: What do corporations do" with their waste? "Then it started snowballing.
"People thought I was crazy" making the move from entertainment to waste recycling, but he was challenged "to take scrapping to another level, to being a waste guru. There's always going to be waste; it's never going to go away."
With elderly parents in his native Beaver Falls, he had returned in 2000 a little burned out from life in Los Angeles, where he had worked in the TV, music and movie industries variously as a producer, talent agent and special events consultant. Before starting U Call, We'll Haul, he worked for the World Booking Talent Agency.
"When I came back, I wanted to have a business that also does something to feel good about," he said. "My other reason was the waste and environmental thing. We are so sabotaging our earth. We do so much damage. I have two young kids and thought about what kind of place we're going to hand down to them. I thought, 'What part can I play?' "
Sometimes the work is just work, such as dismantling thousands of CD racks in Starbucks throughout the mid-Atlantic. "When big brokers who do the major chains get big jobs they sub out to guys like me," Mr. Wallace said. Sometimes, depending on the item and its potential for reuse, U Call, We'll Haul will resell items.
"But that's not what we want to do," he said.
Not everything can be reused or resold.
Desks with big holes for outdated computer monitors, for instance, were examples of short-sighted furniture design. U Call, We'll Haul has a collection of those it is trying to place.
Until recently, two truckloads of hotel room TV armoires sat in the warehouse looking pretty unpromising, but earlier this month, Mr. Wallace and a cluster of guys off-loaded all of the armoires into the warehouse at Glade Run Lutheran Services in Zelienople.
"He called us and asked if we had a need for them," said Tom Woodring, the facilities manager there. "We did, for our cottages," where at-risk youth and people in rehab programs live, "and for families we serve in the community."
Raechel Allen, U Call, We'll Haul's general manager, said the company is building its mission by word of mouth, on Craigslist and in social media. After being laid off at Verizon, she joined the business, mainly because of its mission, she said.
The company has a core of four to five employees but might call in 10 to 15 movers for big jobs. It also hires from a cadre of electricians, repairmen and computer technicians to disassemble and fix what can be reused.
Besides wanting more work, Mr. Wallace also wants company managers to make less wasteful decisions when they divest.
"It doesn't take much effort to sit back and think about another option," he said. "There are tons of organizations out there doing good work without the funds" to buy computers, desks, phone systems, white boards and other equipment.
"The first corporate downsizing we did was in 2009," he said. "There were thousands of dollars of things that had never even been opened."
"There was a whole roomful of supplies [about which] they said, 'We don't want it, throw it away,' " Ms. Allen said. "It may be garbage to them but to many people it's a blessing to have it."
Their donations to Heaven's Rainbow in Wilkinsburg are allowing the nonprofit to relocate from a church that has provided space for 10 years.
"We don't have the operating funds for furniture and equipment," said Kimberly Burke, who founded Heaven's Rainbow to bolster the lives of young and single mothers. "James is going to provide us carpeting, desks, white boards, computers and servers, doors and windows -- pretty much everything we need to open the doors" at a new location.
Trails Ministries, a behavioral health outreach nonprofit in Beaver Falls, is a partner and beneficiary. It operates a re-entry program for people leaving jail, prison and halfway houses and hopes to give some of them work experience with Mr. Wallace.
"They might have some skills he needs or they can develop job skills," said Rev. Eugene Williams, president and CEO of Trails Ministries. "We will provide a mentor or job coach so that, even if they don't get hired by him, they would at least have work experience and a reference.
"They've been a great blessing to us with donations of desks, computers, chairs, paper products, staples, paper clips, all sorts of things like that," he said.
The nonprofit gets federal and state money through Beaver County, he said, "but we're not a well-off county; it's always tight."
Rev. Williams said he and Mr. Wallace played basketball together as youth and moved away, "both of us saying we would never end up back here in this country town. I moved back from the East Coast and he moved back from the West Coast, and here we are back home working together."
First Published January 30, 2012 12:00 am
