For Whittier. With love, from Junket.

This was supposed to be the weekend of Junket's last scheduled Prix Fixe pop-up.

My age caught up with me this summer, leading me to cancel the August pop-up and think deeply about whether or not the events were something I'd be physically able to continue.

For now, that answer is no.

The pop-ups were my first effort to show up in community after losing my sense of safety in the one I had previously inhabited. They were also an experiment in converting things others had undervalued into not just access to resources or cute vintage stuff, but a test run in giving a whole bunch of stuff new chances at good lives — without getting bogged down in the details.

As a test, it was so well received by all of you that I chose to move into the neighborhood. 🤗

That decision was quickly validated last January, when, instead of questioning my luck in having jussst moved my entire life into a fucking powder keg, I was thanking my lucky stars to be and feel safe in this community.

Thank you, Whittier. I'm really glad to be here.

I've spent the last several months hunkered down in my apartment after our collective burst of executive hyperfunction, working to pull several disparate projects into a coherent whole that can accommodate the scope of work ahead.

The Reuse Project — an effort to build infrastructure that facilitates widespread access to and adoption of existing materials as a climate and community need-meeting strategy — is part of the work. Those who participated in meetings and projects this spring taught me a lot about this community and the resources our community - and those like ours - will need to facilitate sustained participation. 🌱

My writing is part of the work.

And my active practice in regenerative commerce is also part of the work.

The pop-ups were one manifestation of that. Shopjunket.com is another, and a reference implementation for the kind of environmentally contextual options we could have and create more of — if we merely chose to accept reality as a design constraint for the future our children deserve.

So, Junket is still here. And so am I. Things just look quite a bit different.

Here's where we can stay connected

For local happenings, community connections, and opportunities to gather:

Follow @junketmpls on Instagram. This will be home to local updates, including whatever new opportunities emerge to bring people together.

For my writing, reuse systems work, and the bigger picture:

Find me at JulieKearns.com, where I'm doing my damndest to summarize and share access to the work of making more coherent futures possible.

For vintage goods, reclaimed creative supplies, and regenerative commerce in practice:

Visit shopjunket.com or follow @shopjunket.

Junket continues serving its global audience as a 100% reuse-run business, modeling low-impact, future-proofed commerce while I figure out how to involve others in ways that permit this work to scale.

Managing at scale, though, is a different animal than offering the same options locally. I'd prefer to be engaging locally, and I'd much rather add value here. The time costs of individual hand selection and preparation make offering these goods at $10, $5, or $2 prohibitive -- time and attention are the fundamental difference between an occasional liquidation model and a high-detail, high-touch, on-demand model.

Shopping our values -- and running economic models on the basis of those values -- involve tradeoffs that extend beyond price and speed of delivery. Of course, being able to afford shopping one's values is a privilege, and I recognize that not everyone has the option. It'll take more of us -- and a lot of incremental small choices -- to shift that equation. That's part of the work. 

That said, if the value proposition resonates — or if you'd just like access to a dozen vintage upholstery tacks or sewing needles without having to buy a bajillion from a billionaire somewhere — I've got the goods. Thousands of them, in fact, packed into the living room of a one-bedroom apartment on Eat Street.

Until there's infrastructure to support something in between, I've put two things in place:

First, please bookmark this link so you have the option for Free Local Pickup.

Then, at checkout, discount code WHITTIER15 will enable a 15% neighborhood discount.  Please allow 2-4 business days for me to get through my twice-weekly fulfillment processes (and life as it comes). 😅 I'd love to improve this as well, but until I figure out how to clone myself or involve others, it's what I can enthusiastically manage. We'll let 'er ride through next December (12/31/27), at which point I hope to have figured out better local options. :) If you've got ideas, get in touch! 

And if shopping isn't your thing (because honestly, I relate to this), I'd still love for you to follow along, share ideas, and help make connections. There's a lot more to this work than moving stuff around (and, there's a lot of moving stuff around to figure out, too).

The pop-ups may be ending, but the experiment continues. I'm looking forward to figuring out what we can make possible together.

With gratitude and deep affection for my new homies,

Julie