Class of 2024, Student Managing Editor, College Editorial Team
Donating old clothes as a UChicago student living on campus can be difficult: it typically requires hauling donation bags onto public transit to the nearest thrift store, or waiting until summer break to donate clothing at home.
Shopping for secondhand clothes can be just as difficult for the same reasons. reSTORE, a thrift store in Stuart Hall established by the student-run Phoenix Sustainability Initiative (PSI), is attempting to change all of that.
Located in the basement of Stuart Hall, reSTORE inhabits what was once a café space. The store includes numerous racks of clothing, hats and shoes displayed in an old refrigerator, a display of student-made art, and entirely student-conceived interior design. Several racks feature curated clothing pieces designed to include a balance of styles and sizes.
reSTORE is open Thursday, Friday and Sunday from 1-5 p.m. in Stuart Hall. Students can donate their clothing in bins in the lobbies of Woodlawn, Cathey and Baker dining halls, and at reSTORE. All proceeds go to three local nonprofits: Openlands, Blacks In Green and Little Village Environmental Justice Organization. reSTORE accepts gently-used clothing and accessories, such as belts, jewelry, bags, scarves and hats.
Openlands works to protect natural spaces in northeastern Illinois, and Blacks In Green and Little Village Environmental Justice Organization support sustainable community development efforts in West Woodlawn and Little Village, respectively.
In describing the genesis of the thrift store, founders Isabella Bonito, Will Harding and Lucas Berard point to a three-day pop-up thrift store held last spring by Campus Waste Reduction, one of PSI’s project groups.
From March 3-5, 2022, in the Reynolds Club’s McCormick Lounge, the pop-up raised nearly $5,000 in three days. It had a 140-person line on opening day, sold 1,441 articles of clothing and was the recipient of the “Outstanding Collaboration Award” in the 2022 RSO Awards Ceremony. Since then, Campus Waste Reduction has been looking for ways to make a more permanent space for donating and selling secondhand items on campus.
“The success and positive feedback [from the pop-up] was overwhelming, so we started thinking over the summer about how to expand,” Bonito said. “We found that a lot of campuses have thrift stores, and, since UChicago already has student-run coffee shops, we knew this sort of student entrepreneurial effort would likely be something the university would support.”
According to Michael Hayes, UChicago’s associate vice president for student life, the students from reSTORE approached Campus and Student Life (CSL) about finding a space for the store. This was the biggest obstacle PSI Vice President Berard and Campus Waste Reduction project leaders Bonito and Harding said they had to overcome in making reSTORE a reality.
While a permanent solution wasn’t possible CSL was able to figure out an ‘extended stay’ storefront for the Spring Quarter, Hayes said.
In addition to help from Campus and Student Life, Campus Waste Reduction also received a Green Fund (a grant from CSL in collaboration with the UChicago Environmental Alliance and Undergraduate Student Government which supports campus sustainability-related research and projects) in fall 2022, some of which they put towards the development of reSTORE. The rest is being used to purchase a permanent donation bin to be placed in the Reynolds Club.
Planning for the store’s opening in the second week of Spring Quarter required extensive planning, from setting up bins in the Reynolds Club and in all of the dining halls to enlisting support from across campus, including from MODA Magazine and Science, Art, Sustainability (SAS) in forming a creative team that would tackle styling, interior and storefront, and graphic design.
When reSTORE opened on April 2, it experienced a similarly high demand to its pop-up predecessor. Lines formed out the door, and three student DJs underscored the store’s opening with music.
“We were happy to see this effort get off the ground,” Hayes said. “We are in regular communication with the students and will be eager to hear how things go the remainder of the quarter. We’ll also assist in brainstorming what could be next.”
The founders’ primary goal is to make reSTORE a permanent fixture on UChicago’s campus. In the meantime, however, they are continuing to think about ways to expand on what services the Stuart Hall space can provide, aiming to make it the “sustainable hub on campus,” as Berard calls it.
Students are beginning to display handmade art in the store, an initiative instituted by Bonito which she hopes will continue to expand. They hope to host events and classes in the space, on everything from the impact of fast fashion on the climate to clothing design competitions to beginner sewing classes to teach students how to mend clothing they already own. reSTORE’s founders are also devising plans to help reduce unnecessary disposal of usable objects during high-volume times in the year, such as move-out.
These hopes for the future stem from a larger goal of promoting sustainable fashion and addressing climate change.
“So much innovation [in sustainability] is going to have to result from chemical innovations, so I think it’s interesting to learn about those things, and to learn about the mechanisms of climate change,” said Berard, a second-year chemistry major who is also on the pre-health track. He is interested not only in learning about the science behind climate change, but in modern social issues relating to it, such as environmental health.
Bonito, a fourth-year Environmental and Urban Studies major, initially became interested in sustainability after developing a passion for thrifting clothing.
A refrigerator re-purposed for shoes and hats on sale.
(Photo by Noel Garcia)
“I came into college kind of lacking a sense of self and identity, and I found that through thrifting and creating a distinct sense of style,” Bonito said.
She also described how her coursework has reinforced her belief in the importance of sustainability, such as through learning about the negative impacts of donated clothing on economic development and clothing supply chains in the Global South.
Bonito said that pessimism about climate change has led to stagnancy and an unwillingness to talk about the issue. However, she believes that organizations like PSI can be encouraging, because they allow students to contribute to environmental initiatives in a small, but significant, way.
In addition to donating to local environmental organizations, reSTORE hopes to further its sustainability mission through making the store a donation and thrifting hub for the larger Hyde Park community, a local approach which Bonito believes could have positive impacts on not only the community itself, but also in relation to larger climate initiatives and approaches.
“It would be great to increase the donated clothes to span more generations: not only does this help with the clothing waste problem that exists in the greater Hyde Park community as well as at UChicago, but it also expands the style palette of the clothing we have at the store,” said Bonito. “On a hyperlocal level, we have seen that it is actually really easy to create a closed loop [of clothing use and reuse] where we live that is more environmentally viable.”
