by Gerry Boyle '78

Every May students face the puzzle of fitting an entire dorm room's worth of clothes, housewares and even furniture into the trunk and backseat of the family car. Too often the last-minute rush leaves officials at colleges throughout the country with their own puzzle‹how to deal with dumpsters overflowing with good, albeit used, stuff.

To keep salvageable items from going to the landfill this year, students, faculty and staff at Colby formed RESCUE (Recycle Everything! Save Colby's Usable Excess) and set up drop-off sites and orange collection boxes in every residence hall. Then, after students had moved out, volunteers sorted through clothing, school supplies, rugs and furniture.

Dale DeBlois (PPD), one of the co-chairs of the initiative, reported that some of the materials were distributed to area nonprofits in May and June, and there's a tractor-trailer load of yard-sale material that will be offered to students, staff, faculty and townspeople next fall, with proceeds to offset some of the cost of the RESCUE program. More than 3,000 pieces of clothing were RESCUEd, and only 4 percent of them had to be discarded, DeBlois said. Some 150 rugs and carpets also were salvaged. Fifteen employees and about a dozen students participated in the effort.