Used furniture gets new home

Next week Tau Kappa Epsilon will give students an alternative to ditching their old furniture in the dumpster. Their annual furniture drive, now in its second year, will collect students' unwanted furniture and donate it to Places for People, a private, non-profit organization aimed at providing individualized and intensive support for people will mental disorders.

Brothers of Tau Kappa Epsilon (TKE) will be collecting any furniture willing to be donated by students as they move out of their dorms and apartments. Joe Misemer started the furniture drive last spring, after watching students dispose of usable furniture.

"I was really frustrated last year when I saw people throwing away perfectly good furniture," Misemer said, so he came up with the idea of providing a way for students to donate their used furniture to charity so that it would not go to waste.

Misemer originally wanted to donate the furniture to Lydia's House, a St. Louis organization aimed at providing transitional housing and support for abused women and their children. However, by the time TKE had organized the drive, Lydia's house had already filled their furniture quota for the year, and the furniture was instead donated to Goodwill.

This year, TKE's chairman of philanthropy and community service Michael Reich, wanted to link the drive to a specific charity. After looking into several charities suggested to him by Colleen Hogan of the School of Social Work, he decided on Places for People. "We called to see if they wanted to collaborate with us on this project," Reich explained.

Places for People, based in downtown St. Louis, was established in 1972, when hundreds of patients were discharged from St. Louis State Hospital and left without personal accommodations. At the time, living options for these former patients were few, consisting of only a limited number of board and care facilities, nursing homes, or the streets, despite the fact that many were capable of living full and independent lives.

Used furniture gets new home - Student Life - News