University of Warwick students raise nearly £47,000 for charity

Students at the University of Warwick have raised £46,928 for charity by donating clothes and other items.

The Pack for Good campaign run by the British Heart Foundation (BHF) encourages students to leave unwanted items in designated clothes banks when they are packing.

At the end of the summer term in 2021 students had given 3,352 bags, adding up to more than 26.8 tonnes of material.

A report from the BHF on its Pack for Good Campaign shows the donations from the students also saved 272,906 kg of CO2 emissions by preventing the material from going to landfill.

Wendy Roberts, director of accommodation and campus cleaning services at the University of Warwick said: “We are thrilled that student donations in 2021 amounted to over £46,000 for this very important cause.

"It’s a simple thing to do but it has so many benefits.

"Not only does it provide clothes for the British Heart Foundation to sell in charity shops, but it gives new life to items and saves tonnes of material from going to waste.”

Amanda Purkiss from the British Heart Foundation said: “Students at the University of Warwick have been so generous with their donations when they leave campus.

"Our clothes banks on campus are well used and allow us to fill our shops over the summer, at a time when we normally see a dip in donations.”

Warwick has been involved with the Pack for Good campaign since 2013 and in that time the BHF reports that students have donated 422.2 tonnes of material, saving 4,297,218 kilos of CO2 emissions and raising a total of £738,934 for the charity.

The money raised helps fund research into heart disease, stroke, vascular dementia and diabetes.

Professor Christine Ennew, provost at the University of Warwick said: “This BHF initiative and these positive results demonstrate that students on campus can make a huge collective impact on reducing waste and carbon emissions by taking individual action.

“At Warwick we have a waste target to double the volume of donations from campus by 2025 and to get to Net Zero carbon emissions (direct and indirect) by 2050.

"In order to get there, we recognise that behavioural change needs to happen if we’re all to make a positive impact.

"Warwick’s focus is on developing more sustainable operations, and using simple but innovative ways to inspire, enable and encourage our staff, students, visitors and our wider communities to embrace the changes needed to tackle climate change.”