Wingate men’s basketball student-athlete Rosco Turner Jr.’s Environmental Ethics class closed out the spring semester with an outreach effort that went a long way toward helping the campus, local community and the environment.

As part of the “Don’t Dump It! Donate It” and Community Giveaway Day campaign, Turner and his fellow classmates organized a drive to collect items students were planning to throw out at the end of the year, then hosted a giveaway for the local community.

The project grew out of discussions in assistant religion professor Heather McDivitt’s Environmental Ethics course that focused on environmental issues, including the amount of resources society -- and more specifically the campus -- consume and waste.  Students in the class noted that each year the school brings in additional dumpsters to collect the unwanted items students throw out at the end of the year, which in turn draws individuals from the community who pull usable items from the trash.

“One of my classmates mentioned the dumpster divers. She said we should start a drive to collect the unwanted items. I believe the ideas and discussions snowballed from there,” said Turner.

The campus collection phase of the project was dubbed “Don’t Dump It! Donate It!” while the second phase of the initiative was called the “Community Give Away Day.”

The class planned the end-of-the-semester project in one class session. Multiple campus collection days and door-to-door promotional efforts to each campus dorm room and apartment yielded televisions, microwaves, area rugs, furniture, kitchen items, vacuums, school supplies and clothing. They also advertised the Community Give Away Day throughout the local community, including charity agencies such as Habitat for Humanity, Goodwill, Feed Your Lambs Ministry and other organizations and churches that could use the collected items.

The community responded favorably to the May 11 initiative, and though the class didn’t do it for the attention, the effort attracted some local media attention and generated excitement both on the campus and in the community.

Although Turner admitted he wasn’t sure how the outreach would turn out, he felt the project was well supported.

“I didn’t think people would be so willing to give away items (in the beginning),” he said. “I was impressed with the good-natured spirit of each person we encountered. People were committed to helping us with this project.”