Community Creative Reuse

How to Avoid the “School’s Out” Throw-Out: Five Ideas for Donating Used School Supplies

As high school and college graduations took place all over the country during the last few weeks, and primary and secondary schools rang the last bell of the 2021-22 school year, it’s been another hot time for purging, call it a “second spring cleaning” if you will, as lockers get cleaned out, dorm/apartment move-outs take place, teachers send home the contents of “cubbies”, and a whole lot of STUFF gets brought back home.

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Still got some of it lying around? Do you save/reuse any of it?

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Unfortunately, saving that half-used box of crayons or that still-in-good-condition “5-Star” spiral notebook/organizer to be used next fall was never that “cool” in the eyes of my kids and sadly, not in some teachers’ eyes, either, but I would always valiantly forge ahead and choose to reuse as much as possible, ripping out and recycling the marked-on pages of “perfectly good notebooks” and saving what was left, buying a pack of pencil-topper erasers to save “perfectly good pencils”, and other “uncool” reuse moves. Yes, we would buy some new supplies in the fall (shopping for new supplies is part of the fun of going back to school, right?)– just not all of the supplies were bought new.

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But, classes do change from year to year, and with that, the list of required school supplies, and, kids do graduate and eventually (hopefully) move out and move ahead in their own directions/lives, and in both instances, you the student or you the parent may be left with a pretty large pile of good, usable school supplies that either a.) aren’t recyclable; b.) won’t be used at home, or c.) will not be accepted in local charitable/nonprofit school supply donation drives, as those usually, at least the ones around my community, only accept brand new supplies. Before you head to the dumpster with all of it, consider the following possibilities:

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  • Just because local, charitable school supply drives (that often take place in mid-to-late summer) may only accept new items, that doesn’t mean used school supplies (and uniforms and backpacks) aren’t wanted– they can usually be donated to the same nonprofit organization (that’s running the supply drive) in other ways to serve children in need. We once had lots of leftover school supplies and a great backpack that I knew a child somewhere in our school district could use, and I contacted the district’s administration office to find the right teacher/administrator to connect with, and she gladly accepted the items.
  • Most creative reuse centers accept school supply donations of varying types. Google “creative reuse center near me” to see if you’re lucky enough to have one in your area. If you’ve never heard of a creative reuse center, basically it’s an organization to which the public, including individuals and businesses, donate leftover art, craft, office and school supplies and the supplies are then sorted and made available to the public for at low cost, so artists, crafters, educators and others can reuse the supplies. Often, teachers receive deep discounts or are able to get the supplies for free. In addition, creative reuse centers usually host workshops to help both children and adults create different types of art and other projects with the donated materials, to show how the materials can be reused in unique ways. Check out The Welman Project in Fort Worth, TX, Catseye Creative Reuse in Boise, Idaho, Scrap Creative Reuse (four locations in the U.S., in Michigan, Maryland, Oregon and Virginia), among many more.
  • Check with a local preschool, city rec center children’s programs/camps and/or a house of worship–they may especially want leftover boxes of crayons, colored pencils, usable glue sticks and other art supplies. (I used to collect all our leftover crayons in a large shoebox, a collection which grew and grew over the years and was especially great when our kids had friends over or when Girl Scout troops would meet at our house, but once the coloring stopped, I was not about to throw that beloved box away. It was put to good use at our church’s Sunday School program.)

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Of course, there are some really creative ways to reuse school supplies/dorm supplies for your own use and/or for use by any children in your life, like transforming notebook covers into artistic collages and making a plant wall out of a hanging shoe organizer. Be sure to follow untrash.blog on Instagram, where I’ll be highlighting a few!