As Students Clean Out, Charities Benefit

Every spring when students move out of their residence halls, they discard furniture, clothing, food, and other items that they no longer need. But this year, instead of throwing those things out, many students are donating them to charity.

A group of students and faculty has been working this spring to solicit donations of sofas, tables, kitchen supplies, unopened canned goods – anything that students would otherwise throw away when they move out of their campus housing. The group has been storing the items in a 48-foot trailer, donated for 10 days by Nationwide Moving & Storage, that is parked in N-lot.

The student and faculty volunteers have been distributing the donated items to several charitable organizations, including Hartford Catholic Worker House and Vecinos Unidos, neighborhood organizations that help support economically disadvantaged families and individuals.

Any charitable organization that has a way to transport the donated goods can arrange to come to N-lot and pick up items from the trailer. If you know of a charity that can pick up and transport donated items between now and Tuesday afternoon (when the trailer has to be returned), please contact Associate Professor of Sociology Jay Stewart at 860.906.7737 or jstewart@hartford.edu.

The donation project was started on a small scale last year by members of the Campus Alliance for Progressive Politics and Action (CAPPA), a faculty organization. This year, the CAPPA members were joined by several groups of student volunteers, including students in Professor Sharon Shepela’s “Psychology of Courageous Behavior" class, and students who are working to start a campus chapter of Alpha Phi Omega, a national, coeducational, service fraternity.

For more information on the project, visit http://uhaweb.hartford.edu/uhdonates.