Sheets, towels, t-shirts and pants were among the more than 30,000 pounds – or 15 tons – of used textile products that were collected by West Virginia University students to benefit the homeless.

The items were collected throughout the month of November by students in WVU’s Fashion Design and Merchandising program. The 2009 A-WEAR-ness Campaign for the Homeless was led by Tracy Vash’s Fashion Design and Merchandising 235 class.

The collected items have been donated to the Clarksburg Mission, which is in the process of sorting to identify wearable garments and baling those goods that have lost their serviceability. Proceeds will then go to support the mission’s programs and activities.

Recyclable textiles include clothing, shoes, purses, belts, bed linens, towels, stuffed animals and fabric scraps. The materials are usually broken down into component parts and rewoven into new products.

Since the campaign’s creation in 2005, over 112,700 pounds of textiles have been collected for redistribution and recycling. Two permanent collection boxes have been installed at the Student Recreation Center on WVU’s Evansdale Campus and at WVU’s Intermodal Facility.

-WVU-

dw/12/16/09

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