College students' discarded items benefit others

When College of Charleston students moved out last week, they had options of where to put items they no longer wanted: in trash cans or in collection bins for others to reuse.

To the person who thought his stab at art, neon-colored paint around a Neil Diamond record, didn't belong in a landfill: You made Colette Hamlin's day.

"It's like I was supposed to come in," she said at the May Bag Sale in which the discarded items were sold to benefit service learning trips. "Today I lucked out. I wasn't expecting to get anything this great."

The painting/collage fit perfectly into her vision of the room she will inhabit next school year. It will be part artsy, part music-themed, part pink, the rising sophomore said. And the thing that sealed the $2 deal: It included the words, "live well, love much."

"That's my motto," she said.

The project, dubbed Move Out, Help Out, is organized by the college and Keep Charleston Beautiful. In its previous five years, it has collected an estimated 30,000 pounds of reusable material.

On May 1 and 2, items were piled high on tables in Berry Hall for the public to buy at $3 per bag or for local community service agencies to take for free.

Anything left afterward would be donated to the Salvation Army, said Stephanie Visser, the college's community service coordinator.

There were the classic college student items such as koozies, shower caddies and Easy Mac. There were coffeemakers, one with a moldy filter still inside. And there were at least 15 copies of "Jewel," the book every freshman was asked to read.

Mostly there were clothes, some with the tags still attached.

"This is my favorite way to shop," said Pam Ulm as she sifted through a stack.

"I may not go back to work this afternoon," said Ulm, who works in the dean's office at the college's School of Business and Economics.

Victor Mazyck of North Charleston was thrilled to find an amplifier for $2 for his 11-year-old nephew.

The minister of music at Tabernacle of God in the Strawberry community said it would have cost him about $80 in a store.

"I'm going to be a favorite uncle," Mazyck said. "This is a godsend."

Reach Kristen Hankla at 937-5548 or khankla@postandcourier.com.