Just like a real store, but everything is free for people doing it tough

Imagine this. You walk into a warehouse filled with smart furniture and homewares. You are invited to take whatever you like. Sofa? Table? Cushions? They’re all yours. Free of charge. With free delivery. “It was such a surreal thing,” says 21-year-old Eva, who had the experience early this year. At first, she felt a bit overwhelmed, she remembers. Somewhere in the back of her head, a voice was telling her that the goods on display were out of her league. “But the people who helped me, they were so kind. They were like, ‘Nah, you deserve this.’ ”

Eva, left, in ReLove’s Sydney warehouse, with co–founder Ren Fernando.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer

Eva is a beneficiary of ReLove, a scheme that serves a double purpose. First, it assists individuals in need. Second, it rescues tonnes of furniture and household items that, despite their quality, might otherwise have gone to landfill. The warehouse, in the inner-Sydney suburb of Alexandria, is laid out like a snazzy showroom. “We call it the ReLove Free Store,” says Ren Fernando, a former architect who’s one of the founders of the non-profit enterprise. About half the stock is first-rate used furniture, much of it given by corporations and hotels doing refits and redecoration. The rest are surplus new pieces, donated by furniture and homewares companies.

ReLove’s clients are people at difficult points in their lives. Escaping domestic violence, for instance. Or arriving in this country as refugees. Or rejoining society after serving time in prison. For one reason or another, they have to set up house from scratch. Fernando says the aim is not only to equip them with necessities but to boost their spirits by giving them the opportunity to select items that will make their places feel like home – from rugs for their floors to pictures for their walls. The warehouse is “really beautiful and joyous”, she says. “It’s designed to make people feel they’re shopping in a real store, except everything is free.” Retail therapy without the bill.

Fernando and former investment banker Ben Stammer launched ReLove in 2021. As Stammer says, they started small: “It was just the two of us hiring a van and driving furniture around. Now we’ve got 10 warehouse and delivery staff, supplemented by volunteers.” They kit out about 25 households a week, supplying each with furnishings worth $10,000 or more. “We’re effectively a logistics business with a huge social heart,” says Stammer, who plans to expand operations to Melbourne.

For Eva, the excitement of visiting the ReLove store came soon after the relief of being allocated permanent housing. She had spent most of her teenage years homeless or in temporary accommodation, she says. Having a space of her own, and the chance to furnish it as she wished, seemed almost too good to be true. She picked out a desk – she’d always wanted one – and enrolled in a short university course in writing for media (which she recently completed). “Sometimes I’d sit there doing the study and I’d have a moment of like, ‘Wow, this is so cool. This is what I’ve dreamed of.’ ”

Her other thrilling acquisition: a bookcase. Eva is an avid reader, and even when she had no fixed address, collected books. She took them from place to place in a suitcase. Now the books have a permanent home, just like Eva. “It’s a good feeling,” she says.

To read more from Good Weekend magazine, visit our page at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and Brisbane Times.