BSU Sustainability Office Reopening Its FreeStore for the School Year

The Bemidji State University Sustainability Office is reopening its FreeStore again for the upcoming school year. The store is a place for students to get many necessary college-life items recycled from previous students.

Back-to-school shopping can be a hassle for anyone – having to go to different stores, spending money, and creating a lot of one-year-use items that then have no home by the end of the school year. Bemidji State University’s Sustainability Office is looking to change all of this.

“So it’s a student resource that houses a variety of items that, as its name suggests, are free to students,” explained BSU Sustainability Project Manager Jordan Lutz. “So any currently enrolled student can walk into the FreeStore and claim anything they find free of charge.”

Any currently enrolled student can take out items from the FreeStore, and they can be anonymous while doing so. The goal of the store is to reduce the amount of items that would normally just go into landfills once the school year is over. One initiative that takes place every semester is called ‘Donate, Don’t Dumpster.’

“‘Donate, Don’t Dumpster’ is the end-of-semester move-out and donation program,” said Colton Fetzer, the Sustainability Office’s Minnesota GreenCorps Member. “Around the United States, it’s been researched and shown that especially during move-out season waste spikes a lot, and so ‘Donate, Don’t Dumpster’ at BSU is our own program to try to mitigate and reduce the amount of waste that we’re creating. After last spring, ‘Donate, Don’t Dumpster’ … received nearly three tons of donations, so that was a ton of work this whole summer and we’re really excited to have people back into the space.”

In making these waste-reducing options for students, BSU is aiming to reduce their carbon footprint. And a great variety of items can be found at the store, like dorm room essentials, school supplies, and a variety of clothes. Students can donate pretty much whatever they want to the FreeStore, but they’re not the only ones who can make donations.

“We want community members to know and feel welcome to donate to the FreeStore,” added Lutz. “There are several locations throughout the Bemidji community where an individual can donate lightly, gently used items to a good cause. But the FreeStore is one of those locations.”

Every semester, along with their normal fees, all BSU students pay a $9 “Green Fee” which funds the FreeStore and its eight to ten student workers, as well as BSU’s other sustainability initiatives throughout the campus. The FreeStore is currently at maximum capacity and awaiting student shoppers.

More information on the FreeStore can be found on the BSU Sustainability Office website.