The Community Closet has been in the making since last semester from students Daniel Jammal and Hayley Rodriguez and their teachers, Ms. Mabel Wong and Ms. Katie Feek. They have helped create this resource to benefit students and reduce fast fashion’s carbon emissions. Fast fashion is clothes that we own but don’t wear anymore because of many reasons; it could be out of style, won’t fit, etc. So we throw them away. This means these textiles go to our landfill which increases the carbon emissions levels and makes climate change worse. The students here at Marshall want to help break that habit and start to recycle and reuse these clothes.
Making this resource wasn’t easy for the Community Closet crew. When they spoke to our principal, Mr. Juan Puentes, he approved the community closet and allowed them to start creating posters. After they created the posters and hung them up all that was left was to start getting donations but they had a minor setback due to not being approved by ASB leadership. So they needed to file the correct paperwork. Once everything was approved they had their first rack on “Say Hey” Day where they displayed all of their recent donations. When speaking to Ms. Feek she said, “ We want to be like Suay; they reuse clothes and textiles and move people to recycle and create a good community base for our planet.”
Jammal and Rodriguez highlight the free aspect of these donations because they want to inform Barristers that their clothes can and are being reused and that this is the purpose of clothes that you don’t wear anymore. Barristers can find Community Closet donation boxes in the Main Office, Attendance Office and in Room 729 with Ms. Feek.
For now, students can shop at Community Closet’s racks at lunchtime events, but the group expects more opportunities next school year. The organizers said all students need to do to begin shopping is to sign in (so they can keep track of how many students took clothes and the number of pieces) and there is no limit [to the amount] of what students can get. Lastly, the community Closet crew say that they hear students who made donations see other students in their clothes around campus creating [and that’s already] a positive outcome.