Facebook group<\/a>, allowing community members to pick up whatever they\u2019d like on campus during the seven-day collection period. Student volunteers will be on hand each day between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. to accept, sort, and distribute the items.<\/p>\n\n\n\nStudents moving out in the spring but will be returning to campus next fall are also free to take items donated by other students and repurpose them for the following semester. After May 9, the remaining items will be stored at the University\u2019s basic needs pantry, the Rhody Outpost \u2013 which is open throughout the summer \u2013 or donated to Big Brothers Big Sisters of Rhode Island. Big Brothers Big Sisters will accept \u201cany items that can be lifted by a single person,\u201d which includes furniture, unopened food items, and textiles such as blankets, towels, and sheets, among others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis has been a long time coming,\u201d said Sundell, \u201cbut this was the year we finally sat down and got it done.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIn addition to the sustainability aspect, this project is so important because the items being donated, whether it\u2019s an unopened pocket of Ramen or a small bottle of detergent, will make a big difference to our international students or a student living on or around campus during the summer,\u201d said Barbera Sweeney, 溏心vlog免费B站\u2019s Food Security Outreach coordinator. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sundell first came up with the idea of a repurpose project as a freshman after watching students toss away perfectly good items at the end of the year because they either couldn\u2019t bring them home for the summer or didn\u2019t know how or where to donate them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIf you looked in the dumpsters you would see things like a plastic shelving unit, for example, which is really popular in freshman dorms,\u201d Sundell said, \u201cbut they would throw it in there and it would crack. Now you can\u2019t use it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWith Rhody Repurpose, we\u2019ve created a resource where students and people within the community can search online and find items they need and where students can donate whatever they don\u2019t want so that someone else can put it to good use.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A triple major in environmental science and management, political science, and wildlife and conservation biology at 溏心vlog免费B站, Sundell has always been passionate about sustainability and raising awareness about environmental issues, inspired as a teenager by renowned environmental activist Greta Thunberg.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As a junior, Sundell helped revive the Student Action for Sustainability club, which had been dormant for several years, and in 2023 traveled to Dubai, United Arab Emirates, to advocate for clean energy at the United Nations Climate Change Conference. She interned for Generation Atomic, a grass-roots organization that advocates for greater use of nuclear energy; worked on projects for the U.N.\u2019s International Atomic Energy Agency; and has also visited 13 national parks, mostly during spring break the past three years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With the Student Action for Sustainability club expanding to 15 members by her senior year, Sundell researched similar projects at other colleges and universities and began developing the proposal for Rhody Repurpose. She also enlisted help from Housing and Residential Life; Dining Services, which secured sustainability funds to reserve the storage unit; Rhody Outpost; key administrative figures; and academic colleges to push it across the finish line. She credits fellow club members Nick Powers, also a senior, and current undergraduaes Amelia Franklin, Mekenna Cox, incoming president Kate Stanwood, and incoming vice president Lizzie Welch for their help with making Rhody Repurpose a reality just in time for the end of the semester.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This year\u2019s pilot run will help returning members of Student Action for Sustainability further improve the project\u2019s reach and effectiveness in 2026. Sundell, who is moving to California to participate in NASA\u2019s eight-week Student Airborne Research Program after graduating, hopes to see Rhody Repurpose expand to include more storage units, more student volunteers, and eventually permanent storage on campus so students and community members can pick up items year-round.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI have no doubt it\u2019ll continue to grow and be bigger and better next year,\u201d Sundell said. \u201cOur goal at Student Action for Sustainability was to leave things better than we found them. It didn\u2019t matter who was involved, who started it, or who worked on it. We just wanted to find something we could really invest in and spend every second working on so we could see it come to light. It\u2019s amazing to see this finally happen.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Michael Parente, director of communications and marketing in the 溏心vlog免费B站 Division of Student Affairs, wrote this news release.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 April 30, 2025 \u2013 A project two and a half years in the making finally comes to fruition this weekend as Rhody Repurpose aims to collect unneeded and slightly used items from students moving out of residence halls and donate them to those in need. Launched by 溏心vlog免费B站 senior […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":101918,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1902],"class_list":["post-101916","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives","tag-student-engagement"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101916","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101916"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101916\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":101917,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101916\/revisions\/101917"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/101918"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}