A new resale shop in Brookfield is dedicating its revenues toward benefitting BEDS Plus, the LaGrange-based nonprofit fighting homelessness.
Budget Box Resale opened for business on Thursday, Aug. 20, at 3441 Grand Blvd. just off Eight Corners. The shop features second-hand treasures from clothing and jewelry to home goods, wall decor and the kind of lovely miscellanea you find in the bargain bin. The space is accessible through a side entrance rather than the front door.
Nancy Lisowski, the owner and operator of Budget Box and one of several vendors selling goods, said the store came about in the wake of the sale of the building where her business previously operated out of the LaGrange Park Antique Mall.
“That was the catalyst of a bunch of our dealers retiring or downsizing,” Lisowski told the Landmark. “We got it pretty quickly. This all happened in a month and a half.”
Lisowski had been running the show at the LaGrange Park Antique Mall before the building was sold. There, she had organized a nonprofit co-op for the vendors to work together under the banner of Community Vintage Resale. She said the group had partnered with Hop District, a brewery in LaGrange Park, to raise $30,000 for charity through fundraising events.
Her business originally got its start 80 years ago before she bought it 40 years ago. It originally opened in Brookfield somewhere on 47th Street, she said, before moving to LaGrange Park and now returning to Brookfield.
“It was the end of the summer, and my uncle sold businesses. I could have been talked into anything after being at home with the kids all summer, so I bought a business and learned that way,” she said of her path to business ownership.
Lisowski said the current location, which is open Thursday through Saturday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., is temporary while she works with BEDS Plus to find a larger permanent location. All of the proceeds from sales or donations are going to the nonprofit, she said.
“We worked with a bunch of non-for-profits through [the co-op]. I’ve always been in Rotary [Club] and a bunch of other non-for-profit organizations,” she said. “We do whatever we can to support all of them.”
Other members of the former LaGrange Park Antique Mall crew who didn’t join in at Budget Box Resale are opening a separate shop in town called 31st Street Antiques, Lisowski added.
She said the collaboration with BEDS came about after the organization sought to hire her to lead a similar effort, with their vision being a warehouse-like space to resell the existing stock as well as furniture and larger goods.
“Non-for-profit, that’s always where my heart’s been,” she said. “When BEDS contacted me about this idea, it was, ‘Hey, can we hire you to coordinate?’ I’m like, ‘No, you can’t hire me, but yes, I will do it. I will do all of it until you guys take over.’ I’m going to do it voluntarily. That’s where I feel I should be, giving back to the community.”
