A change in the weather means it’s time for a cleanout, and that means going through your wardrobe only to find that you don’t actually wear half of the clothes that you own. This is what senior Business Administration major and founder of Earthkeepers, Claire Kasari, noticed when talking to her friends before winter break.
Kasari and her friends wanted to do a clothing swap with the items they no longer wanted after going through their summer clothes to prepare to bring out their winter wardrobe when she had the idea to make it a campus-wide event. “I thought to myself, You know there are probably a lot of people on this campus who are doing the exact same thing who don’t know where to put their clothes, how to organize a clothing drive, don’t know how to organize a clothing swap and don’t have the resources to do so, and I was like, I could probably do that! Let me see how feasible that would be,” Kasari said.
What started as just two clothing donation boxes – one in Gough and one in Eagle – led to a box in every dorm building on campus, all of which would be filled with clothes that students no longer wore and wanted to go to a good cause.
“We got so many clothes! I don’t know if this is environmentalist but I did 22 loads of laundry for all of the clothes. It was insane. It was a lot of laundry to do because I wanted everything to be clean for COVID too,” Kasari said,
All of the work putting out the boxes, having students donate, and washing the clothes to prep them for distribution paid off on Saturday, April 17 when the Sparrowk tent became a place for students to find new clothes without spending a dime.
“It was so successful and so many people came by and were like, ‘Wow! This is actually good stuff!’ and I’m like, ‘Right?’” Kasari exclaimed. Any misconceptions students may have had about thrifting were tossed aside quickly as the clothes were all in good condition and some pieces even still had tags on them.
As for the clothes that were left over after the event, members of Youth Against Complacency and Homelessness Today (YACHT) volunteered to take them and prepare them to give out to those experiencing homelessness in the city so that none of the clothes would go to waste.
The grand success of this clothing drive goes to show that sustainability can be very stylish indeed.
Grace Nealy 
Jason Karch 
Josh Steen