I have just begun a new project to help reduce furniture waste during college move-out season while helping members of the community living in areas surrounding college campuses. Read on for a full description of the project and instructions for spreading the idea to other colleges/universities!
Background: Every year during move out season, hundreds of furniture items and home goods end up in the landfill because it's a mad rush up until graduation, and then everyone's leases end like two days later, or they have to rush to the job they've gotten upon graduation. Most people simply don't have the time and energy to carefully resell, giveaway, or donate their items, so they go in the trash or to the curb. However, some people do do that kind of planning, and they resell/giveaway their items in our college's free stuff and cheap stuff group chats that are hosted via GroupMe (an app that is for making group chats between iPhone and Android users). The cheap/free GroupMe's are very popular because the DM format makes them fast-paced. People post items, they get claimed, they work out pick-up/delivery in their DM's, and that whole process can happen in a few minutes and rarely exceeds 24 hours. This is the only practical way for people moving out on short timelines to sell/get rid of their stuff. Other platforms like Facebook marketplace, eBay, Poshmark, etc. just aren't convenient enough to be popular for this purpose.
To this point, the GroupMe's on my college campus have been pretty much exclusively for students and sometimes faculty within the university community (and some of the chats have gone to great lengths to verify this - mostly because there are issues with bots, scammers, etc.).
I have created a GroupMe for the specific purpose of connecting college students looking to get rid of stuff with community members in the surrounding area who might really need those items. I've been posting the first flier seen below around the lowest income areas of the city (one area reportedly has 95% of people living below the poverty line). People are encouraged to leave things at the curb, near dumpsters, or in other communal areas then post them in the chat. Allowing pick up or delivery to your home address is not recommended (safety) but not prohibited. People are also encouraged to post things they see on the curb even if they aren't theirs.
If you want to replicate the same thing for your university:
1) Download GroupMe (you can find it in the Google Play Store): https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.groupme.android&pli=1
2) Create a Group (it'll have you put in some info about the group and give you the option to add members, but you can skip that part).
3) Secure the Group with GORT. You can go free or paid; both give you tools to ban members who misbehave (or turn out to be scammers or bots) and make multiple people admins for the group so it isn't all on you to monitor the chat 24/7: https://botsol.net/gort/
4) Create rules/warnings to protect yourself and others. I put the link to my rules in the description of the chat and also pinned it as a separate message. This is what I came up with: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1d89tfBXiNfTlYvoHClfBvHJh4yTp-67YfCABt0niHXE/edit?usp=sharing
5) Create fliers like the one at left, and get them into the lowest-income parts of the city. Take safety measures when doing this because these are frequently areas that are also more dangerous (poverty creates desperation). I targeted my fliers to posts near sidewalks, bus stops, public parks, public schools, and public libraries. I just pulled my car over with the hazards on, stepped out, put up a flier, and then left for the most part (not traveling far from the car and not carrying my purse).
6) Share the join link to your GroupMe to other college chats to recruit people who might want to giveaway/sell things in the chat. If GroupMe is not used or popular on your campus, you could also create a second set of fliers to put across campus specifically, explaining the purpose of the chat. I plan to put up the second one below next year during move out season.
If you're trying to do this, and you've hit any issues, feel free to send me a message! I've worked all this out myself, and I'm happy to help you (especially if you're unfamilar with GroupMe).
2) Create a Group (it'll have you put in some info about the group and give you the option to add members, but you can skip that part).
3) Secure the Group with GORT. You can go free or paid; both give you tools to ban members who misbehave (or turn out to be scammers or bots) and make multiple people admins for the group so it isn't all on you to monitor the chat 24/7: https://botsol.net/gort/
4) Create rules/warnings to protect yourself and others. I put the link to my rules in the description of the chat and also pinned it as a separate message. This is what I came up with: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1d89tfBXiNfTlYvoHClfBvHJh4yTp-67YfCABt0niHXE/edit?usp=sharing
5) Create fliers like the one at left, and get them into the lowest-income parts of the city. Take safety measures when doing this because these are frequently areas that are also more dangerous (poverty creates desperation). I targeted my fliers to posts near sidewalks, bus stops, public parks, public schools, and public libraries. I just pulled my car over with the hazards on, stepped out, put up a flier, and then left for the most part (not traveling far from the car and not carrying my purse).
6) Share the join link to your GroupMe to other college chats to recruit people who might want to giveaway/sell things in the chat. If GroupMe is not used or popular on your campus, you could also create a second set of fliers to put across campus specifically, explaining the purpose of the chat. I plan to put up the second one below next year during move out season.
If you're trying to do this, and you've hit any issues, feel free to send me a message! I've worked all this out myself, and I'm happy to help you (especially if you're unfamilar with GroupMe).
