From a Small Office in Concord, NH, a Worldwide Impact
(Concord, NH) On June 13, on a project at Lester Arnold High School in Commerce City, Colorado, into a trailer destined for the charter Wallace Stegner Academy near Salt Lake City, Utah, The Reuse Network surpassed a milestone: 2,000,000 items provided to nonprofit organizations for disaster and poverty relief.
The Reuse Network has a double mission: Keep usable furniture and equipment out of American landfills; match them with nonprofit organizations serving underprivileged communities. Operating since 2002, The Reuse Network is the largest and by far the most experienced facilitator of furnishings reuse in the United States.
In 2024 The Reuse Network filled 235 trucks and trailers from 65 project locations with 81,000 pieces of furniture. These were supplied to 75 nonprofit organizations in 24 states and 16 countries in Africa, Asia, and the Americas. 2025 is witnessing significant growth; through July The Reuse Network has already shipped more than 86,000 items.
“We focus on school and residential furniture,” says Mark Lennon, The Reuse Network’s founder and CEO. “Classroom items because education is crucial to escaping poverty for hundreds of millions of children. Residential furnishings because they’re essential to rebuilding communities wrecked by natural disaster and human conflict.”
Reflecting these priorities, over The Reuse Network’s 23-year history they have sent more than 325,000 desks, 730,000 chairs, and 142,000 tables to nonprofit organizations. These are generally destined to communities in the world’s poorest countries, for example, Malawi, Zambia, and Ethiopia in Africa, Afghanistan and Bangladesh in Asia, Haiti, Honduras and Guatemala in the Americas.
On the residential side, The Reuse Network has shipped more than 90,000 beds, 109,000 mattresses, 48,000 dressers, plus thousands of dining and coffee tables and nightstands, wardrobes, chairs and couches. These have gone to hurricane reconstruction in Central America, flood relief in Pakistan, refugee support in Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon. Many thousands have been distributed in the U.S., to hurricane and flood relief in North Carolina and Kentucky, tornado victims in Joplin, Missouri, long-term poverty relief in Appalachia and Native American tribal reservations, and to furniture banks that help individuals and families to move past homelessness, incarceration, or abusive relationships.
“We’re like trash guys; our clients pay us to make their surplus furniture go away,” says IRN’s Lennon. “But instead of bringing dumpsters headed to a landfill, we bring in trucks and trailers going to folks who need furniture but can’t afford it – or in many cases have no other access to furniture. One trailer outfits classrooms for 300 kids, or furnishes about 30 small houses or apartments. We charge about as much as trash guys, so everyone – and the environment – comes out ahead.”
For recipients, furnishings from The Reuse Network can be life-changing. From a relief coordinator in Somalia: “For most of the children attending this school this was the first time that they ever sat at a desk. Most of the children don’t even have furniture in their homes. Before the furniture arrived the children sat on rocks and pieces of wood.” From a refugee assistance coordinator in Zarqa, Jordan: “People’s lives are already being transformed. You’ve truly provided help for today and hope for tomorrow.”
What’s next? More and more of the same. “It’s a year of milestones for The Reuse Network,” says Lennon, “two million pieces, 10,000 trucks and trailers shipped, 2,500 projects completed. We’ve been at it a long time. But there’s so much to do, it feels like we’re just getting started.”
About The Reuse Network
The Reuse Network’s corporate mission is to keep usable excess furniture and equipment out of American landfills, by matching them with nonprofit organizations to be reused where they are needed for disaster and poverty relief, in the U.S. and around the world. Working nationwide with colleges and universities, independent and public schools, hospitals, and corporations, IRN is the largest and most experienced provider of this service in the United States. Since 2002, IRN has placed more than two million items for reuse by over 300 nonprofit organizations in 47 of the United States and in 71 countries in the Americas, Europe, Africa, and Asia, helping to improve the lives of hundreds of thousands of children and families across the globe.
The Reuse Network is not itself a nonprofit. Its founder’s belief is that an environmental and social mission-based organization can have the most influence if it works within the capitalist enterprise system, by demonstrating that environmental and social benefit are not incompatible with making a profit in a free-market economy.
