<p>Today is the "Trash To Treasure" sale at Penn State. For the past ten years collection points have been set up when the students move out and the kids donate what they don't want to schlep home. Truckloads of clothes, furniture, computers, flat screen televisions. (Whose kids are those?) Typically 60 to 70 tons of stuff is donated and in the end just a couple tons are left. The proceeds of the sale benefit the United Way. To date they have raised more than $550,000 for local charities and prevented thousands of tons of usable items from going to the landfill. It is a big win/win.</p>
<p>Perhaps I should post this on the Parents Forum next fall when people are deciding how much they need to take to school. ;)</p>
<p>Oxford College of Emory does something similar. In each of the dorms there are donation boxes where students put all the things they don’t want into some of the boxes. Then a charity (can’t remember which ones) comes and collects the boxes. There’s no sale though.</p>
<p>Bates does this also. My kid donated a futon this year. He wanted me to drive up to get his other stuff so he could fit the futon in his car and I told him no way I was driving 600 miles (round trip) for that.</p>
<p>For years in Berkeley the city would coordinate the Trash Day with college neighborhoods. Trash Day is normally celebrated by people walking around at night, picking up what others put out. I still have a dresser, end table and shelf picked up. We also got a dishwasher from Trash Day walks.
The flea markets are full of tv, couches and lamps all summer until students come back and buy the stuff.</p>
<p>Northeastern has collection bins during move out week and then holds a big sale during welcome week in the fall - they give the proceeds to an environmental group. Last year, my daughter and friends went to the sale during the last hour and everything was free!</p>
<p>Happykid reported this week on the “street furniture” that she and her apartment mates have collected. I gather that they are making a rather thorough investigation of the neighborhoods near their university as students move out.</p>
<p>Believe me, I was tempted to do some dumpster diving at D’s college when she was moving out! I saw some usable items, but our van was already full with 2 college kids’ stuff and 7 passengers.</p>
<p>I believe S’s college collected things and donated to the local thrift shop. Thrift shops near colleges could put out notices, send collection trucks for move-out days.</p>
<p>Similar program at Santa Clara University, and for a number of years they won some award for the amount they donated to charity, my daughter said it was amazing what was tossed…lots of stuff with the tags still on (so when you are schlepping stuff to school, think twice about the volume…much never gets used!).</p>
<p>I think this is a great program…recycles well.</p>
<p>Too bad there is so much stuff that was needlessly purchased in the first place, however.</p>
<p>I love how it works at Williams. All of it comes back out in September to be sold again to students. Profits benefit the local community with little or no overhead. Some students get a large portion of their wardrobe this way. Prices are very reasonable.</p>
<p>Harvard used to do something like that with furniture to benefit Habitat for Humanity. Now I think they furnish the common rooms as a way to decrease summer storage; I don’t know if they still have the sale.</p>
<p>“Encouraging” is a heck of a lot different then parking collection dumpsters and trucks outside of the dorms so kids can choose that instead of a real dumpster.</p>
<p>I am not sure how Wellesley handles this officially, but when D arrived last fall as a first-year, in her dorm, there was a large room full of stuff left from the move-out previous year and it was all free to the students - she scored some killer boots and a nice winter jacket!</p>
<p>It wasn’t an “organized” event but at S2’s school there was always furniture,etc. out in front of all the student rental houses just across the street from campus. It was free for the taking. S2 and roommates had several pieces of furniture that they found while curb shopping.</p>