If you walked down College Ave. yesterday, you probably saw the moving vans, tents, and students hauling away couches, desks, and rugs. Perhaps you heard the orchestra playing.
The piles of goods, and musical accompaniment, were the signature features of Tufts' second annual Dump & Run, a mammoth yard sale co-sponsored by Environmental Consciousness Outreach (ECO) and the Leonard Carmichael Society (LCS).
"It's been going really well. We've had a lot more students this year," said senior Keryn Bromberg, the Dump & Run coordinator and former ECO co-chair. "I feel like this is really becoming a Tufts event," she said, crediting the warm weather and band with the event's success.
Increased advertising, she added, didn't hurt. "More people knew about it this year. There were people waiting outside the gate at nine this morning."
During finals week last spring, students placed their unwanted goods into containers in dorm common areas. Volunteers collected the items and sorted them before storing the sundry collection for the summer in Oxfam Cafe. In sorting through the containers, volunteers see everything - from baby clothes to coffee from Slovakia. And, of course, a few pairs of worn undergarments.
"This fall we had a lot of volunteers come and help finish sorting and really getting the stuff ready for the sale," Bromberg said. She estimated that volunteers spent one or two hundred hours on the effort in total.
But students aren't the only participants in the exchange. This past spring, Facilities donated ten desks, faculty and staff volunteered their time, and Planet Aid sent in their own volunteers.
"It's a win-all situation," Bromberg said. She added that Tufts saves time and money by not having to dispose of all the items that students would normally leave behind, Planet Aid receives all the proceeds and leftover goods that are not sold, and students don't have to feel as though they are wasting their materials.
Amy Lewis manages the Planet Aid store to which all proceeds benefit. "We have clothing containers all over New England," Lewis said of Planet Aid, which has programs in Africa, India, Central, and South America. The higher quality items are sold in their stores to fund grassroots activities.
For Lewis, the best moment of the day came when a customer found a psychology textbook that cost $1 - the same book that she had recently purchased at the Tufts bookstore for $100.
Sayaka Ogata volunteered at the sale as part of her work at the Institution for International Cooperation and Development, a program that is linked to Planet Aid. But Ogata was a customer, too. She picked up a mat to cushion her sleeping bag for only 50 cents. Ogata might need it in January when she leaves for Nicaragua to do some development work.
"I think this is a good project, but I wish that there was more advertisement on campus," she said.
The sounds of "The Doug Rosenberg Afro-Cuban Fire" entertained the shoppers and lured them to the food and beverage table. The trio of Doug Rosenberg, saxophone and bell; Carmen Staaf, keyboard; and Diego Pinera, drums; volunteered their talents for the day without the help of their bassist, who couldn't make the event.
In the final 15 minutes of the sale, Lewis picked up her bullhorn and announced that everything except for the desks now cost only 50 cents.
Senior Gary Wilson walked away from the sale with two rugs - and his wallet was only a dollar lighter. "It's a great deal, being a college student," he said. "I wasn't expecting this."
