Grad Bag Outfits Hundreds of College Students for Dorm Room Life

At Let's Get Ready's annual Transition Day workshop, Grad Bag distributed a record-setting amount of new and lightly-used dorm room essentials. In a single day, Grad Bag gave away over 200 comforters, 500 decorative and bed pillows, 150 rugs, 250 bunches of hangers, 230 blankets, 275 sheet sets, 150 desk and standing lamps to hundreds of incoming college students.

Founded in 2012, Grad Bag is a green initiative to reuse college dorm supplies. The organization collects and redistributes lightly-used items that too often end up in landfills and delivers them to first generation college freshmen from low-income households. Each year since its founding, Grad Bag has multiplied its reach. The organization now operates in both New York and Boston, collecting from 13 colleges in the Northeast.

To distribute the goods it collects, Grad Bag works with Let's Get Ready (LGR) that was started by a Scarsdale High School graduate 15 years ago. LGR provides low-income high school students with free SAT preparation, admissions counseling and other support services needed to gain admission to and graduate from college. Services are provided by volunteer college students who also serve as role models and mentors.

This year, the LGR's New York Transition Day workshop was held at Barnard College. Early on the morning of August 2nd, many hands helped load 4 truckloads of goods. Upon arrival in Manhattan, the trucks we were met by an additional crowd of people to unload and set up the Grad Bag "store." Hundreds of happy students from LGR and other local inner city college prep organizations left the workshop with bags full of dorm room supplies.

Grad Bag was founded by Tara Tyberg and Liz Gruber, both of Scarsdale, in 2012. When moving their children out of their college rooms, Tyberg and Gruber realized that there were a lot of dorm room items college kids have no use for once they've graduated but are in fine workable condition. The pair contacted their friends and neighbors—parents of recent college graduates—to gather items that would otherwise be thrown away.

Each May, Grad Bag works with local colleges to collect items that would otherwise be thrown away. In June and July, the items are cleaned and and packaged and in early August, they're distributed. At each of 2 two "community folds," 30 to 40 volunteers from Westchester Reform Temple (WRT), Scarsdale Synagogue and the greater community fold and package sheets, comforters, blankets and towels and more.

Since 2013, WRT has been Grad Bag's partner and New York home. WRT graciously allows Grad Bag to use many empty classrooms over the summer months for the work of getting everything in close-to-new condition that's ready to distribute. The very generous donations of laundering and trucking make it possible for this grass-roots effort to exist. This year Stanley Steemer donated their services and cleaned over 150 rugs.