SummerCorps Begins

Mission #1: Babson Consignment

SummerCorps at Babson College has officially started.  My cohorts (Shu and Tinu) and I began our first assignment, sorting through the donations for the first ever Babson Consignment Shop.  This idea all began when a few students came up with it as part of the "Be The Change" campaign at Babson during the spring semester (more details to be told in the future).  During the frenzy of finals and packing, Babson students have a tendency to leave things behind that can be reused, so in order to stick to the motto of "Reuse, Refuse, Recycle" the Babson Consignment Store will take all of these left behind items and resell them in the fall to students who could use them and save a few bucks.  

After a quick orientation chat with Josh, our supervisor and hero, we were brought to the basement of Park Manor Central (usually a freshman dormitory building). Behind a very large and very heavy door was the largest pile of "stuff" that I had ever seen (Picture HGTVs Clean House). 

Our task: Move, sort, clean and tag every item of "stuff" in the room

At first the job seemed overwhelming, even impossible! But It's Possible at Babson and we pulled up our sleeves and got to work.  After an hour we broke for lunch, but then we were right back in the thick of things.

At the end of the day I am happy to say that we managed to sort through everything.  Here is a list of some awesome and disgusting donations we found:

• Brand New 15 piece knife set
• Over a dozen working televisions
• at least 10 refrigerators
• Countless lamps
• a book binding machine
• a universal plug set
• old school pencil sharpener
• two three legged tables
• A 6 ft gold lamp (Who brought this all the way to school and then left it behind!)
• An entire collection of frames, photos of friends included
• A few TONS worth of clothing (to be donated to the salvation army)
• A pot of soaked wood chips
• A half full and moldy bottle of salad dressing
• And countless other items that were dirty yet spectacular

The day was a great first day.  So far my cohorts are awesome at lifting things that are too heavy for me and not too shabby at the organizing.   Tomorrow we will be cleaning all of the items, I can't wait!

Until Next Time Don't Forget: Reuse, Refuse, Recycle