Year-End Hack and Pack Goes Green

One man’s waste is another man’s treasure; this theme came back in full force during the final two weeks of school as the boys prepared to clean out their rooms, empty their backpacks, and pass on outgrown clothing, a time affectionately known by those in the dorm trade as "Hack and Pack". Faculty members Yuan-Hsiu Lien and Cory Savereid helped make the appropriate signage for the 40 collection boxes with a group of students during a Saturday Morning Activitiy. Shu-Chen Lin and a group of Third Formers distributed the collection boxes throughout the dorms; four boxes per floor. Each dorm assigned a faculty coordinator to communicate to yet another faculty member who was in charge of each box to come and collect when the box was full. The purpose was to do a better job of pulling perfectly good items out of Eaglebrook’s waste stream and pass them on to others in need.

One box was for outgrown clothing was collected and organized by Yuan-Hsiu Lien. We collected well over 60 full garbage bags, enough to fill my pick up truck, pictured here. Among other items were many perfectly good, like-new shoes and sneakers that had simply been outgrown. All of these items were donated to the Salvation Army in Greenfield. Also, there were 5 more bags full of selected items that were specially pulled out by Chris Lowe and brought to Deerfield Women’s Club, a chapter of NELWCWIT, New England Learning Center for Women In Transition. In addition to that, Ed Bouquet also was able to bring a good assortment of clothing to a resettled Springfield family who came from Burundi, Africa, a contact made though The Jewish Family Services, an organization directed by past parent Robert Marmor, father of Jacob ’09.

Faculty member Shelley Dresser collected electronics. Printers, wires and desk lamps were the most popular items collected. Most of the 30 box loads collected unfortunately ended up in the dumpster with the exception of the desk lamps which worked. These were also brought to the Salvation Army. Next year, we will reassess the electronic box, especially how we could better use the many printers collected along with their corresponding components.

There was a box specifically for textbooks. Chris Lowe collected, sorted and when possible, redistributed well over 300 textbooks. Textbooks that could be recycled back into the curriculum have been brought to the specific department chairs’ offices for redistribution for the 2009-10 school year. Others that have been phased out will hopefully find a home in another school, or in the worst-case scenario be recycled. In addition to textbooks, there were many paper backs and hard cover books collected.

Finally, Shelley Dresser was also responsible for collecting the classroom materials/school supplies box. Binders, filler paper, graph paper, dividers, pens, pencils, markers, hole punchers, and rulers all found their way in to this particular box. Some of these supplies were redistributed into faculty apartments to replenish supplies, but a fair amount was donated to the Salvation Army.

It is important to understand the significance of the work carried out by these faculty members and the participation that the boarders brought to the process. Although the school has always done a decent job of reclaiming outgrown clothing, I feel as though we did a much more thorough job this spring. It's hard to imagine that much of what we collected would have been thrown away. Nice work from those faculty and boys directly involved and the huge support from all the dorm faculty. A little green goes a long way.