Going green down to their threads
Recycling has been taken to a whole new level, one that can be seen and, more importantly, worn. That’s the aim of Sustainable Notions for All Generations, said Corrie Blackham, senior in family consumer science education and founder of SNAG.
Blackham said she has sewn since she was about 8 years old.
“I would alter my sister’s clothes to fit me so I was used to changing what I have to make what I want,” she said.
Blackham was used to recycling old things for new when she was introduced to a book titled “Generation T: 108 Ways To Transform a T-shirt” by Megan Nicolay. Blackham said the book gave her new ideas on how to recycle things she already had, particularly clothing.
“In my class, dress and humanities, we had to remake something old for something new,” Blackham said.
That was the foundation for SNAG, she said. Lindsay Shirley, of the family and consumer science education department, has overlooked Blackham’s work and collaborated with her on deciding the name for their new organization.
“We wanted something catchy and that presented our ideas on how simple it is to recycle things,” Blackham said.
Blackham said she and Teisha Thompson, who is the co-founder of SNAG, deal mostly with cotton and denim because that is what people have the most of, so that’s the item of which they have received the most donations.
“We work with denim and cotton because they are easy to mold, they are durable and you can layer them,” Blackham said.
SNAG had received most of its donations from the dress and humanities class last semester. It received used clothing from roughly 50 people, and has only utilized about half of the donations it received so far, saving the other half for next semester, Blackham said.
Blackham said SNAG strives to help people realize they can recycle clothing and reflect their own personalities in doing so.
“Our theme is on being an individual,” she said.
Currently SNAG is only able to put on roughly one event a semester, spring semester’s being a workshop in which students who are interested will be taught how to develop their own clothing, but Blackham said that she hopes to do more with it once she has graduated.
“Right now it’s geared towards college students. Dr. Shirley and I are looking to implement a secondary education curriculum that will teach students how to make their own clothing out of recycled clothes,” Blackham said.
SNAG currently makes and sells a variety of products including purses woven out of grocery sacks, matted past calendar covers, sewn recycled pants and T-shirts, checkbook covers made out of recycled cloth, daybags (to hold gym clothes) made out of old T-shirts and scrapbooks made out of recycled paper, to name a few, Blackham said.
“They are all really easy things to make and all of the money goes right back into buying things to make more,” Blackham said.
SNAG is growing and is looking for volunteers to help make the products it produces, she said. Blackham said that they are currently working on developing a blog, but until then, anyone who wants to become involved can let Blackham or Thompson know by e-mail at snagtogether@gmail.com.
–beck.turner@aggiemail.usu.edu