With their husbands in school, Grace Huang and Lori Luo don't have a lot of money to spend furnishing their University of Minnesota apartments. But there they were Tuesday, struggling to carry a 45-piece china set, some crystal bowls, a photo album and a candelabra to student family housing. The price tag? There wasn't one.

The duo went shopping at the neighborhood free store, a pilot program developed by the Southeast Como Improvement Association in an effort to keep unwanted furniture and household goods left behind by students off lawns and out of dumpsters. . .