After 11 years, Ruth’s Reusable Resources fills every inch of the Bessey School in Scarborough. Rooms are packed with reams of paper, bins of pens and shelves of text books, and an entire gym is stuffed with felt, cloth and other recycled and donated materials that nearly reach the ceiling.

But with the Bessey School Senior Housing project receiving final approval from the town last month, Ruth’s Reusable Resources must vacate. By next June 30, owner Ruth Libby will have to pack up whatever supplies teachers have left behind and move into a new space she still has to find.

The school will be renovated into 14 apartments, and another building is planned for an additional 40 apartments, said Cindy Taylor with Housing Initiatives of New England.

Ruth’s Reusable Resources is a nonprofit organization that stores, inventories and gives to member schools throughout Maine donated materials such as paper, books, cloth, computers, office furniture and other supplies teachers can use in their classrooms. Libby estimates that about 6,000 teachers come through each year.

Finding a space big enough for everything has been a challenge, said Libby. If possible, she would like to avoid moving into another school. The stairways, hallways, multiple rooms and a lack of loading docks make organizing and storage a challenge.

“We’ve looked at all kinds of places,” said Libby, who has considered other closed schools, churches and mills. “It all comes right back down to money.”

“Most nonprofits, when they relocate, don’t need 30,000 square feet of space,” she said. Moving to a temporary space while looking for more funding is another option, said Libby. But even then, a year’s rent would cost her about $100,000, she added.

Meanwhile, Taylor is currently applying for more money to help with the $6 million she estimates it will cost to renovate the school and build a new addition.

“I think it will be very exciting when it’s done,” said Taylor, who hopes to find a way to connect the apartment buildings by walking trails with the Maine Veterans Home next door. Housing Initiatives, a nonprofit group, has built about 17 affordable senior housing complexes all over Maine and New Hampshire that range from 24 apartments to 100. The Bessey School will be a mid-sized project for Housing Initiatives, with 54 apartments.

Eventually, said Taylor, who is also a member of the Scarborough Senior Study Implementation Committee, she hopes to use the remaining land behind the school for more housing or possibly a senior center, depending on Scarborough’s needs.

The competitive funding application process comes in December, said Taylor, and if all goes well she hopes to start construction immediately after Ruth’s Reusable leaves. A year after that, she added, the housing would be complete.

“We still have a lot of pieces that need to fall into place,” said Taylor.

For Libby, she would like to stay in Scarborough, but may have found a possible temporary building in Biddeford. She has also looked in Westbrook, Saco, South Portland and other surrounding towns.

She said she hopes moving will give her more space, since it’s been getting tighter over the last five years. While moving everything, she will use the opportunity to catalog all the materials and enter them into a computer system, something that will make keeping track of day-to-day business easier.

“It will work out, I know it will work out,” said Libby.

Jeremy Ray, principal of Westbrook’s Canal School, would welcome Ruth’s Reusable if it could find a home in Westbrook. Ray said his school saves about $10,000 a year by picking up supplies at Ruth’s Reusable.

“The best thing about this place is every teacher who comes through here would have bought most of this stuff out of their own pockets,” said Ray. “We make sure our staff gets here to take advantage.”

Teachers from all over Maine come to Ruth’s Reusable Resources to find supplies for their classrooms. Ruth’s will have to move by June 31, 2007 to make way for 54 units of affordable senior housing. An architect’s rendering shows the entrance to the new building that will be attached to the Bessey School. The addition will include 40 apartments of independent senior housing. The Bessey School is shown to the left of the entrance.Jen Kirkbride, a Sanford High School teacher, searches through donated books at Ruth’s Reusable Resources. After 11 years of storing supplies in the Bessey School, the building is nearly overflowing.The gym of the Bessey School is filled floor to ceiling with donated supplies. Rolls of felt, stacked up in the gym, are popular items for teachers looking for arts and crafts ideas.