This weekend students from the Tsunami Relief Group collected items from donation boxes across campus that will be used for a tag sale in front of the Campus Center on April 3. All profits will be donated to grassroots organizations of affected countries.
“We thought it would be a new thing, a chance to raise a lot of money, and have some fun,” said Sarah Reed ’08, one of the organizers.
The group has had boxes set up for a few weeks now, mostly in dorms. They received little response from senior houses, but were relatively successful in collecting items from dorms. The organizers also emailed listservs to advertise when the collections would be taking place.
“We’ve gotten coats, jeans, and sweaters—mostly clothes though,” said Ruby Ross ’08, another organizer. “We’ve also got a stereo from my RA and a box of Tide.”
“My favorite item that has been donated so far is this MC Hammer jacket that has puffy sleeves,” Reed said.
The leaders of the group, Ross, Reed, Gitanjali Prasad ’08 and Rebecca Littman ’08 have already received permission from Physical Plant to store the donated items in the old squash courts until April.
Now that that the group has a storage space, they plan to step up their collection campaign by going door-to-door to ask for contributions. They also plan to flier the campus asking students to bring things back from home to donate.
The Tsunami Relief Group has spearheaded most of the tsunami relief fundraisers this semester. The group was formed by Aparna Iyer ’08, and began organizing relief efforts immediately after winter break.
“During break I was hoping there were things I could do to help with the tsunami relief, so I started emailing listservs, and then I heard Aparna was planning on organizing a group,” Reed said.
The Tsunami Relief Group consists of about seventy students who split into smaller groups to take on individual projects.
“We didn’t even know what was really going on, but everyone was doing something, and that added up to a lot,” Prasad said.
The idea for a tag sale was brought up during the first tsunami relief brainstorming meeting.
“We figure we all buy old clothes anyway,” Reed said.
“The tsunami relief has been a campus wide effort, a lot of events that have been going on have offered to collect donations,” Littman said. The group has organized such events as Tsunami Relief Week, the Tsunami Relief Party at Psi U and several shows, which cumulatively have raised about $2,700 dollars. This money was donated to grassroots organizations in Thailand, Indonesia and India.
“We’ve spent a lot of time researching different places to see how credible they were,” Prasad said.
The three organizations that were chosen were MEDICARE in Indonesia, Chinmaya Mission in Indian, and King of Thailand’s Rajprachanukroh Foundation in Thailand. The funds raised by the tsunami relief tag sale will go to the long-term efforts in the countries affected by the tsunami.
Suggested items for donation are clothing, toys, jewelry, posters, appliances, furniture, books, CDs or anything that might be helpful.
“Anything you don’t want anymore, we’ll take,” Littman said.
The group is optimistic about the money they will raise from the tag sale, but agreed that it all depends how much people donate. They ask that students bring back items from home after spring break.
“This has been just an amazing project, because everyone has really followed through and have been so passionate about it,” Reed said.
Collections of items will be made through April 1.
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