As students clean out their rooms, Ohio University and Athens County organizations are teaming up to collect more than just a boatload of donated items: they’re looking to fill a semi.
OU’s Recycling and Refuse, Sustainability and Student Involvement offices, in conjunction with Athens County organizations such as the Second Harvest Food Bank and the Nelsonville Community Center, are collecting food and reusable items students might otherwise throw away as they pack their belongings and prepare to leave Athens.
Although these groups have collected items for several years, they are extending their efforts this year by inviting Athens residents to donate and by focusing more on donations from off-campus students.
“This reduces messes in the community and on campus, and it’s easier to manage than stuffing things in dumpsters and sending them to landfills,” said Ed Newman, OU Recycling and Refuse manager.
Collection sites have been set up on the front porches of 110 Mill St. and 85 N. Congress St., as well as Domino’s Pizza at State Street and Court Street and Athens Middle School on West State Street.
People in Athens can also call several organizations to pick up items from their homes. In addition to the food bank and community center, New To You, Goodwill, ReUse Industries, Friends and Neighbors, the Golden Gaits 4-H Club and the Athens County Fair Board will pick up donated items.
The collections will go on as long as students are on campus, although most of the organizations will pick up items at any time of the year, Newman said.
Most of the food collected will go to the Second Harvest Food Bank.
“We’re organizing everything toward the food bank; they have the greatest ability to organize the food and distribute it,” Newman said.
The majority of the donated items will be collected at the Athens County Fairgrounds on West Union Street.
Over the course of several days next week, food bank employees and volunteers will try to fill the food bank’s semi truck at least once with donated items, said Teresa Cline-Scurlock, operations support manager for the food bank.
“We can take (food and household donations) and get them out to pantries to help out the families that are having a rough time right now,” Cline-Scurlock said.
In the past, end-of-the-year donations filled three or four skids, or wooden platforms, Cline-Scurlock said. A semi full of donated items would amount to at least 24 skids’ worth of food and household products, she added.
“You’re looking at quite a difference with what we’ve had in the past couple of years,” she said.
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