Clothes for the holidays
Photo: Brandon Arkinson launched Moving Hope to donate clothing left behind at his residence to downtown shelters. Photo by Clifton Li.
What happens to clothing when it is left behind at a residence? As a resident of Neill-Wycik Co-Operative College, Ryerson Faculty of Community Services student Brandon Arkinson noticed that many international students left large parts of their wardrobe behind at the end of a semester. “We have a lot of leftover clothing between semesters and in the summer,” said Arkinson. “International students don’t want to pay $50 bag fees. Rather than leave it for the garbage, we clean it up and use it downtown.”
The result is Moving Hope (external link) , a non-profit organization that distributes clean, lightly used clothing to shelters in downtown Toronto. In its short existence, Moving Hope has already built relationships with two downtown shelters. With the fall semester coming to a close, it is in the midst of one of its busy seasons.
“We have a lot of leftover clothing between semesters and in the summer,” said Arkinson. “We were trying to get organizations to take it, but sometimes they took it out of the city, and sometimes they wouldn’t pick it up and we had to throw the resources out.”
Arkinson sees Moving Hope as a variation on the ‘food desert’ concept (a high-needs urban population that relies on canned foods in lieu of easy access to fresh foods). “If you extrapolate on that, this is like us having an urban garden and then exporting the produce instead of using it in the neighbourhood that needs it. I said, ‘We have six shelters within a two-block radius. Let’s do something positive.’”
Moving Hope is one of many charitable initiatives happening on campus during the holidays. The Psychology Research and Training Centre’s HIV Prevention Lab is currently collecting canned goods for the Toronto People With AIDS (PWA) Foundation’s annual Joy Drive (external link) . Donations can be made outside of SBB 207. The Faculty of Science’s Reverse Advent Calendar is collecting non-perishable food items for the Good Food Centre until Dec. 21 at VIC 740. Today (Dec. 15) is also the last day to donate to the Ted Rogers School of Management’s holiday food drive (with all proceeds going to the Scott Mission) and University Relations and University Advancement’s toy drive, located at reception on the 9th floor of 415 Yonge Street.