Students’ unwanted clothing raises £4,000 for YMCA
Volunteers help to sort unwanted belongings left by students vacating on-campus residences for the summer
Students leaving campus residences at the end of the summer term have donated unwanted clothes and electrical goods worth more than 4,000 pounds to the YMCA in Sussex.
Staff at Sussex Central YMCA have just finished sorting through the donations and believe that they can make £4,230 by selling the items in their shops.
They say that the money raised could provide:
- A week’s emergency accommodation for up to 24 homeless young people
- Three months of counselling for up to 17 traumatised children or young people
- Training to help up to eight young people get into employment
Since 2009 the Students' Union and the University has taken action to ensure that as many items as possible are reused and/or recycled, instead of being thrown away and destined for landfill.
Before then, at the end of every academic year students would throw away a huge number of belongings that had been newly purchased and were still in good condition.
Students packing up for this year's summer vacation were asked to take their reusable items to designated areas.
Co-ordinated by the Students’ Union’s Becca Melhuish and the University’s Support Services Manager Rachael Adari, staff, students and other volunteers sorted the donations before distributing them to various locations.
The YMCA received: 25 bags of clothing, worth £3,300; 60 bags of rags, worth £330; and 60 electric items, worth £300.
The Sussex Central YMCA provides 209 bed spaces every night for homeless young people, counsels children and families in more than 90 schools and informs and advises more than 2,500 young people each year.
Juliette Beesley and Emily Cross, Operations Managers at the YMCA say: ‘We would like to say a massive thank you to Rachael Adari, the Students' Union and all other volunteers who put in the hard work to enable us to raise this huge amount of money for our charity.’
Items that might be suitable for new students - such as books, CDs, DVDs, crockery, cutlery, pots and pans - have been kept for a free shop for freshers in September.
Donated food and bedding has been sent to other relevant charities.
