A swap that brings community together and sustainability to life.
Taylor World Outreach (TWO) is hosting their annual Clothing Swap on April 30 from 5 to 6:30 p.m. The event has been a tradition for over 10 years, taking place in the TWO office inside the LaRita Boren Campus Center.
To collect donations, TWO places bins in each dorm and in the TWO office, where any student or faculty member can place their donations. Each donation will be turned into the front desk of each dorm.
Jen McKim, TWO’s office manager and coordinator for Community Plunge, has worked with the program for eight years.
“Every article of clothing that you drop off, they’ll give you one ticket for each article.” Said McKim, “Then you just bring your tickets to Clothing Swap, and that’s basically how you pay for anything you get.”
As part of the event, Taylor students donate clothes in exchange for one red ticket per item given. These tickets function as free money when they attend the clothing swap.
“There’s stuff for everyone, we always have girls' clothes and guys' clothes in like every size.” Vinnie Talarico, co-director of Clothing Swap said.
The event offers only clothing; no bags or accessories will be included in the swap.
All students and faculty are welcome to participate in the swap even if they decide not to donate.
“You can buy them for a dollar a piece.. but a lot of times we’ll just give them away anyway because we have a lot left over.” Talarico said.
There will be a desk at the entrance of the TWO offices for everyone to check out and turn in their tickets.
“We have all sorts of people come by, and it’s a really fast-paced event,” said McKim. “Within the first hour, most people have come and gone through everything.”
The event is like shopping at a thrift store, Talarico said. TWO works to transform its space into a simulated thrift store atmosphere.
“It always shocks me every year when we do it,” McKim said. “I’ll walk past the door and see a couple of students and then five minutes later, it’s like, whoa.”
TWO partners with a shop in Upland, Helping Hands, to donate the excess clothes after the event.
Talarico emphasized that both the swap and thrifting are about being sustainable.
“This year we’re partnering with the Eco Assistant in the dorms to promote more sustainability,” Talarico said.
Once all the donations are collected, TWO organizes them and lays out all the clothes in the office.
“We kind of try to set it up like a little store, so we’ll have mirrors around, and then we’ll turn these three offices into dressing rooms,” McKim said.
The line will start at the TWO entrance in the Larita Boren Campus Center.
