SACKVILLE, N.B. — Have you caught the Marie Kondo bug and are thinking about decluttering? Want to start clearing out your closets but you’re not sure where to donate your clothing?
The Mount Allison women’s rugby team can help.
The university squad is running a clothing drive for the month of February and are making it easy for you to kiss your stuff goodbye.
“We will come pick up your clothes right from your doorstep,” said Sonia Siddiqui, a player and a member of the team’s fundraising committee.
The rugby players will have weekly pick-ups and Siddiqui said if anyone wishes to donate to the cause, all they have to do is message the ‘Mount Allison University Women's Rugby Club’ Facebook page with their address and which of the three Wednesdays (Feb. 6, 13 or 20) they would like their bag(s) to be picked up.
As well, the team will also have a drop-off location across the street from the Sackville Farmers’ Market for the next three Saturday mornings – Feb. 9, 16, and 23 – from 9 a.m. to noon.
Siddiqui said the idea for the fundraising clothing drive came from some of the players themselves, who were motivated by the recent popularity of Marie Kondo’s method of cleaning in the new Netflix show The Magic of Tidying Up.
“A bunch of the girls have been inspired to purge out their closets … so then we just started thinking, why not make this a bigger thing?”
With 40 girls on the team, their initial thought was just to have a team clothing drive but then they thought other students at the university might also have been caught by the Kondo bug. And then they decided to expand it even further to comprise the entire community.
“Everybody’s kind of in the spirit to give away more of their stuff,” said Siddiqui of the Marie Kondo craze. “I think it gives people a sense of clarity, knowing what they have. And it also makes them feel good about giving.”
The Cash for Clothes clothing drive will see items donated to the New Brunswick Association for Community Living, a provincial, non-profit organization that works on behalf of children and adults with an intellectual or developmental disability and their families. The rugby team will receive $1 for every bag they collect for NBACL.
“We thought it would be a great way to give back to the community while also keeping it local,” said Siddiqui, noting some of the funds raised by the NBACL goes to support Sackville-area individuals and families.
The women’s rugby team relies on fundraising as one of their main income sources, since the squad is not a varsity team at the university, but a club team. Therefore, other than registration fees, the team must bring in funds through events such as paint nights, cookie dough sales, jersey auctions and spring bulb sales to purchase needed equipment and to pay for field rentals and officials.
