Residence Life initiated the Give and Go program to reduce waste from students moving out of residence at the end of the academic term and redirect gently used items towards new students moving into residence in the fall.
Finding a home for useful, yet unwanted, things
Residence Life program creates circular economy for gently used items
Every year, about 1.200 students move into residence at the Fort Garry Campus. Students may not have a lot of stuff when they arrive to their dorm room, but as they settle into their space, they begin to accumulate a lot of items for daily living.
Then, at the end of the Winter Term, there is a mass exodus of students, and a lot of items get left behind, says Jessica Dearborn, acting associate director of Residence Life and Residence Student Support Coordinator.
“When students are graduating, whether they’re international students or they are moving off campus, they don’t know what to do with this stuff that doesn’t fit in their suitcases or they won’t need anymore, like twin size bedding, pots and pans, or dorm specific stuff,” she says.
A lot of things were being discarded and ending up at the landfill, or in diabetes donation bins.
Dearborn says they thought there must be a better way of dealing with all these gently used items, adding that they noticed a lot of students were also buying items at thrift stores to help keep costs down.
After consulting with the Office of Sustainability, Residence Life developed a plan, says Dearborn. “What we were really trying to do, with their guidance, was get to zero waste. Basically, we’re not throwing anything in the garbage; we’re keeping as much as we can or we’re donating as much as we can.”
In the winter 2024 term, they launched the “Give and Go” program in residence. Spearheaded by Carly Duffield, associate director of Residence Life, who is currently on leave, the program’s main goal was to work to drastically reduce waste from students moving out of residence at the end of the academic term and redirect gently used items towards new students moving into residence in the fall.
Dearborn says they collected approximately 1,000 items from outgoing students, including household items like dishes, cutlery, small kitchen appliances, bedding, decor, and even textbooks. “We were overwhelmed with stuff,” says Dearborn. “We bought these really big bins and around the end of April we were up to our eyeballs in donations.”
Over the summer the staff at Residence Life sorted, cleaned and disinfected items that were in good condition and discarded items that weren’t salvageable.
In September, at the beginning of Fall Term, Residence Life hosted a Give and Go pop-up shop, where current residence students could buy items for pocket change or by bringing a tin for the bin. All proceeds were donated to the campus foodbank.
“It was really rewarding to see all of our hard work during the summer, pay off during this event,” says Dearborn. “We ended up raising around $600 and we had a big wagon of food that went to the foodbank.”
Get involved
Interested in doing something similar in your department?
“Just be creative, think outside the box,” says Dearborn. “This was a problem that we’ve been dealing with for a long time, and we didn’t know what to do. It took one person to think outside the box and to think about how we can use this stuff going into the garbage. And now, students are thriving with lightly used, reclaimed stuff.”
If you have an idea to reduce waste in your department, contact the Office of Sustainability for their perspective, as well. They have lots of resources and tips for sustainable actions you can take on campus.
October is Sustainability Month. All month long we are raising awareness and highlighting ways you can get involved in sustainability initiatives on campus.