Student Trash Becomes Charity Treasure

The day after a college lets out for summer break is usually dead on campus, but charities find plenty of work to do when students abandon bicycles, clothes, and other accoutrements of campus life, reports the Los Angeles Times.

Most of the items are perfectly usable if not brand new, and the article lists an astonishing variety of goods salvaged from dormitory rooms: mink coats, silver punch bowls, crutches, “exotic underwear,” and a 5-foot boa constrictor in a dresser drawer.

A charity drive at Pennsylvania State University, called Trash to Treasure, sold off 66 tons of goods last year and raised $50,000 for a local United Way. Other large state universities reported similarly high yields, and proceeds benefited Salvation Army branches and food banks, among other groups.

A charity called Dump & Run now helps about a dozen colleges run programs to find new uses for items discarded by students, reports the Associated Press.

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