News Center

May 1, 2014 – The Allegheny College student initiative Gators Give Back will hold its 7th annual rummage sale at Stone Church on the Diamond in Meadville on Thursday and Friday, May 8 and 9. Thursday’s hours are 7:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. The sale concludes on Friday with a $3 bag sale from 7:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Sale items – which include clothes, shoes, dishes, hats, books, furniture, appliances, linens, housewares, toys, games and more — are donated by students and other members of the college community. Proceeds from the sale benefit Project Chacocente, a grassroots effort outside Managua, Nicaragua, which helps families residing in the city’s municipal dump to relocate to a healthier, sustainable life within a rural farming community.

The idea for the rummage sale began with a service-learning trip taken by a student delegation from Allegheny to Project Chacocente in May 2007, as a way to continue to help the Chacocente community from a distance. Allegheny students and staff returned to Nicaragua in 2010 and 2012. Twenty-three students are planning to participate in the service-learning trip to Nicaragua in May 2014.

During their trips to Chacocente, students work alongside the residents to clear and plant community-cultivated fruit and vegetable fields, build and improve classroom buildings and other facilities, including the community’s first flush toilets, and play with the children in the on-site school.

Over the past six years, proceeds from the rummage sale have resulted in more than $13,000 in donations to the project. Ninety percent of the sale’s proceeds goes directly to Project Chacocente, while 10 percent is distributed to local nonprofits. In addition to providing help to the project, the sale keeps perfectly sound items from taking up space in local landfills.

Information about Project Chacocente can be found at www.outofthedump.org or by contacting Michaeline Shuman, mshuman@allegheny.edu or 814-332-2381.