The average U.S. consumer throws away 81.5 pounds of clothes a year, according to earth.org. With the idea of curbing clothes waste on the brain, Drake senior Bria Rhodes came up with a way to increase sustainability on Drake’s campus.
“I watched this Brandy Melville documentary and I already knew some of the numbers about overconsumption, but I didn’t know how bad it was,” Rhodes said. “I thought back to my [first] year when I was moving out. I gave away a lot of clothes. I noticed that a lot of my clothes that were getting donated ended up in a trash can. So I thought, ‘Why not have an on-campus place?’”
Rhodes isn’t the only one involved in this project, which was dubbed Drake Threads. It’s a part of a capstone project facilitated by Drake LEAD students including Rhodes, Hailey Horman, Heidi Wheeler, Sydney Weegens, Sebastian Adamski, Brynn Miracle and Nicole Cox. The project aims to bring sustainable thrifting directly to campus.
“There hasn’t been an event like this at Drake, so this [will] be kind of fun and cool and get other Drake students together,” Wheeler said. “I’m excited to see just how many people we can get at the event and how many things we can sell.”
After an intense brainstorming session on what to do for their capstone, the team behind Drake Threads quickly focused on an idea that would address a visible gap on campus. Recognizing the challenges students may face in obtaining clothes, whether due to financial limitations or lack of local resources, the group committed to creating a sustainable on-campus thrift store. Once the project was confirmed, everyone took on roles to bring the vision to life.
“In class, we just all take a role,” Rhodes said. “Somebody’s on campus making flyers, somebody’s posting the posters around the campus, someone’s reaching out to somebody about if people have a donation bin.”
To encourage donations and build engagement, the team has set up tabling events in the Olmsted Breezeway, providing students a chance to contribute and connect with the group.
“We’ve been advertising tabling events where people can come and do donations at a donation station,” Rhodes said. “That’s really fun too because they get to see [the] faces behind Instagram and just talk to them.”
At the heart of Drake Threads is a commitment to spreading awareness about the environmental impact of fashion. The students behind the capstone aim not only to offer an affordable thrifting option but also to challenge their peers to rethink their consumption habits. By highlighting the sustainability benefits of thrifting, they hope to inspire others to make more eco-conscious choices.
“If people do something about it they will actually get it through their heads and do it more frequently,” Horman said. “It’s just about spreading the word that even one T-shirt can take up to, like, gallons of water to make, which is insane. So I’m just spreading facts and stuff about that.”
Beyond promoting sustainability, the event is designed to strengthen bonds within the Drake community by encouraging students to support each other through their donations. Unlike some thrift stores that may prioritize profit, Drake Threads relies on contributions from within the student body and surrounding community, creating a shared cycle of giving. Senior Sam Basala was one of the first to donate to their cause.
“What I really like about it is the fact that it’s donation-based primarily, whereas, a lot of the time you have people nowadays who thrift themselves and they’ll upsell them,” Basala said. “Drake Threads is a little more unique because they ask for people to donate things, and they’re directly taking those things and giving back to that same community they got them from.”
Looking ahead, the students behind Drake Threads are eager to see the event grow into a lasting tradition on campus. They hope the concept of community thrifting will inspire future students to continue promoting sustainability and inclusivity through similar events.
“I personally would love for this event to be an annual thing, or maybe a once a semester thing,” Rhodes said. “I would love for there to be some way that someone could take it and keep it going, like, if they were a part of the LEAD minor, a class or if it became a club, that would be something very cool. We would just need people to really understand the why and just to see the impact.”
This event will take place from Nov. 20 to 23 on Pomerantz Stage in Olmsted. For now, members of Drake Threads encourage students to donate and spread the word. Donations can be dropped off at the Olmsted Breezeway during tabling events or by reaching out to a Drake Threads team member through their Instagram to arrange a pickup. Each item donated also enters the person into a raffle for gift cards to places close to campus like McDonald’s. To stay up to date with everything going on, look for posters all around campus and follow their Instagram @drakethreads.
