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BY ROSARIO PAZ

In print | Published April 26, 2007

Rather than abandon unwanted clothing and other items at the end of the semester, this year students will have the option of donating their unwanted but usable belongings to a yard sale event, organized by Juliana Macri ’09 and Marina Isakowitz ’09.

During the week of finals, collection areas will be designated in the lounges of various dorms and in a central location in Parrish Hall, where students can deposit the items that they would otherwise leave in their rooms or scattered around trash areas prior to leaving campus. Macri and Isakowitz have launched the project in an effort to minimize environmental waste and ease the work and costs of disposal — a burden that falls heavily on Environmental Services and the college administration.

According to Executive Assistant for Facilities and Services Paula Dale, facilities incurs numerous costs associated with the removal of unwanted items at the end of the year. “The two largest costs are $2,500 for extra dumpsters and $3,192 in Environmental Services staff costs,” Dale said.

All proceeds will support the work of various service organizations in Chester, including student tutoring groups.

“The funds that we’re raising for this project we hope will go to organizations in Chester because they’re doing really good work and also for the tutoring work in Chester,” Isakowitz said. Some of these groups are Chester Eastside Ministries and YouthBuild, a new group that aims to help disadvantaged teenagers.

“I saw all the stuff that people leave behind when they’re moving out,” Macri said. “Every year, there are dumpsters full of stuff. The EVS people don’t have time to sort through everything and figure out what’s worth saving, so they just throw it all away. It’s just a huge waste of stuff that could be put to some use,” she said.

Dale said that in past years, time constraints have forced EVS to dispose of most of the belongings that they find in vacated rooms. “Under normal circumstances, in order to get the dorms cleared out in such a short time, we have to just throw everything away. Working with [the yard sale] gives us an opportunity to reduce the amount of trash and re-use the usable stuff,” she said.

EVS employee Mary Cooper, who has worked in Mertz and Willets for 15 years, described the two weeks between the end of the exam period and graduation as “the most hectic time of the year” for EVS. “We get ready for graduation guests, so we usually have only a couple weeks to clean. And we have to turn it over in just a few days for alumni. After the seniors leave, we might only have three days to clean up all those rooms [for Alumni Weekend],” Cooper said.

Macri and Isakowitz will be working with EVS and student volunteers throughout the finals period to sort and process the collected items. “We’re going to be gathering stuff after underclassmen leave and again once the seniors graduate. Our hope is to find people to work with us so that this job won’t be as monumental as it could be,” Isakowitz said.

Almost anything usable that students have, including clothing and bedding, appliances and electronics, books and products, can be donated to the yard sale. “People run out of space in their suitcases or boxes for storage, so I think it’s going to be a huge assortment of stuff. As long as it’s not completely unusable or gross, we’re going to try to sell it because you’ll never know what people will try to buy,” Isakowitz said, adding that “clothing, refrigerators and even half-empty bottles of detergent” would be welcome additions to the yard sale.

Isakowtiz and Macri have recruited over 20 volunteers from several student groups, including Earthlust, the Class Awareness Group, Rotaract and the Labor Rights Group. The project is also being supported by students remaining on campus for graduation or those who applied for summer housing.

“The Labor Rights Group is trying to raise awareness about being more considerate and respectful, and they’re trying to start a campaign for students to clean up their rooms afterward and not leave a huge mess,” Macri said. Cooper said that EVS workers participated in a survey to identify things that students can do to make EVS’s job less taxing. “The rooms need a lot of improvement at the end of the year, when students leave [unwanted belongings] in the rooms for us to clean. Just be courteous and be considerate … Don’t leave [the rooms] really trashed,” Cooper said.

Students are being asked to be peripheral supporters of the project by using the collection areas rather than littering items in different parts of campus as has been experienced in previous years.

“One of the huge things that [students] can do is put their stuff in the dorm collection areas,” Isakowitz said. “Even if it is last-minute, put it in the lounge collection areas instead of putting it in their rooms or in the trash areas. That will just make everyone’s lives easier,” she said.

“From an ethical standpoint, we’re all very privileged and it’s not cool for us to just leave our stuff behind,” Macri said. “EVS every year is responsible for picking up all this stuff that students leave behind and spend the whole day after students leave doing this. It’s a huge job for them because students can be really inconsiderate about leaving their stuff behind. We’re trying to make it as easy as possible for people to just walk [their unwanted items] down the hall and not really have to think about it too much.”

According to Macri, she and Isakowitz obtained a Swarthmore Foundation Grant for their project with the encouragement of Pat James in the Lang Center for Social Responsibility, who had seen the success of similar projects by other colleges. This grant will pay for the costs of the event, like supplies needed for the fair. “Most of it is going to be going towards storage, transportation and feeding kids that stay here to work with us,” Macri said.

Macri and Isakowitz hope that this will be a continued effort that will work as successfully as it has in other schools.

“What a lot of colleges have found was that … every year, their sales are more successful because more people show up and more people want to help out. It is something that tends to show up on everyone’s radar,” Isakowitz said.

Collections will begin on May 14 during the week of finals and end on May 21 when underclassmen have left campus. More collections will be organized until June 4 when most students will have left campus. The yard sale event will be on June 18.

Disclosure note: Marina Isakowitz is the circulation manager for The Phoenix, but had no role in the production of this article.

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