Stop the dump with a cardboard box

Every room in the Winschoterdiep international student house received its very own cardboard box this week. This way exchange students who are leaving Groningen can donate anything they don’t need any more to the Red Cross. It’s an ESN idea.

Almost 400 cardboard boxes have been distributed in the Winschoterdiep international student house as part of the ‘Stop the Dump’ pilot project. The project is intended to see if something good can come out of all those things that international students leave behind. ESN delivered the boxes and will collect them on 5 July. The donations will be handed over to the Red Cross Student Desk to be redistributed among the needy.

‘It’s the first time we’ve done this in Groningen’, says chairman Timon den Hertog, of ESN. ‘We’re trying Winschoterdiep first. If it works, we can repeat the exercise in other international student houses next year.’

The first donations have been handed in already – in boxes ESN put in its own office for students who don’t live in Winscho. ‘I’ve seen canned food already, clothing and even bed sheets’, Timon says.

But he thinks larger items may be donated in Winscho, too. ‘I can imagine people won’t want to drag everything through the streets’, he says. Maybe bikes will be put ‘in the box’ as well. ‘Every year international students try to sell their bikes, but it’s hard, because they all want to do it at once and so many are left behind.’

Don’t live in Winscho? You can still help! Just bring your donations to the ESN office in Walburgstraat.

 

27-06-2013