Vassar College
IN-47: Innovation A

For over a decade, Vassar has hosted a move-out program called SWAPR (short for Stop Waste And Promote Reuse). Like many similar programs, donations of furniture, electronics, clothes, and books were collected during move-out and redistributed to other students in need.

Like so many other colleges and universities, Vassar ended in-person instruction suddenly over spring break and could not allow students to return to campus to pack their belongings in the short term. Eventually, a phased process where students could gather what they wanted in pre-reserved periods of time spaced out over six weeks, or else request that all their items be packed and stored for the summer.

The Vassar Office of Sustainability coordinated an agreement with Housing that allowed students to opt into items being collected from their rooms for donation after a set period of time. Over the course of the summer, two staff members went through the residence halls and on-campus apartments and collected hundreds of lamps, fans, mini-fridges, and other valuable items of use for new students. At the start of the fall semester, students with significant financial aid were able to request items through an online form and set a pickup time to get their items in a safe, socially distanced manner. All told, hundreds of items were collected and redistributed, saving students in need tens of thousands of dollars while also keeping two shipping containers' worth of usable consumer goods out of the landfill.