Come to campus during finals week, and you’ll find students throwing their stuff into the trash. Whether textbooks, old clothes, electronics too big to move or even bikes, mountains of unused but perfectly good items tend to pile up next to dorms.
The Give & Go Donation Program aims to change that. Established by Residential and Dining Enterprises (R&DE) in 2013, the program serves as Stanford’s primary summer donation program, encouraging students to reduce waste by donating unused items. Today, Give & Go—recognizable by its student-designed alpaca logo—has grown into an expansive endeavor, with twelve general donation sites spanning dorm pods, trailers and entire enclosures coupled with nine bike drop-off spots scattered around campus. The program operates bike donation and recycling stations year-round, but the bulk of donations come during the summer. Over the past decade, Give & Go has collected more than 612 tons of donations, with 112.5 tons from last summer.
Izabella Smolnicka-Dos Santos ’26 M.S. ’27, a zero-waste communications intern with R&DE, credited the department for managing the infrastructure and back-end coordination of the program. She emphasized that Give & Go is “a way to simplify your moveout experience,” noting the hassle and various logistical difficulties that come with the move-out process.
Even though the campaign is focused on the move-out period, preparation begins months earlier. During the planning process, R&DE coordinates among its staff, student groups and nonprofit partners, according to Assistant Director for Sustainability & Utilities Debbie Andres. Since its inception, Give & Go has “expanded collection sites, support to students, and nonprofit partnership” in order to increase efficiency, Andres wrote to The Daily.
Smolnicka-Dos Santos said that outreach is a major part of R&DE’s campaign.
“Because the turnover from finals to move-out is so quick, it’s so easy for people to just want to get rid of everything as quickly as possible, and the most convenient option, most times, is the dumpster,” she said. To raise awareness of the alternative, the team has designed an interactive map, updated the website and will post information on several affiliated student organizations’ social media pages. The team also places posters in student dorms and waste enclosures.
The program redistributes donations to a number of other organizations, including The Office of Child Health Equity at Stanford Medicine, the Stanford First Generation and Low Income Partnership (FLIP), the Ecumenical Hunger Program, Out of the Closet and the Goodwill of Silicon Valley, among others. Students play a key role in the program through sorting and distributing items and promoting donations.
Smolnecka-Dos Santos said that her initial goal this year was for Give & Go to collect 100 tons of donations. But after seeing the results of the 2025 program, her hopes are even higher for this summer’s effort.
“If the sky’s the limit, over 200 tons of diverted materials would be lovely,” Smolnecka-Dos Santos said, describing it as “heartbreaking” to see reusable goods tossed into the garbage.
“The R&DE Give & Go program demonstrates how sustainability and community support can work together,” wrote Andres. “By donating reusable items instead of throwing them away, students reduce waste, simplify their move-out process, and help others on campus and in the local community.”