Swap at U.Va. held their first “mini” swap event this past Friday as students gathered in Garden IX to exchange second-hand clothing, jewelry and laughs.
Through offering a smaller clothing selection between donations and student vendors than with larger exchanges and choosing a more open layout in the garden, the mini swap placed more emphasis on the social aspect of the event.
Swap at U.Va. is a student-led organization focused on weaving sustainability and creativity together through hosting school-wide clothing exchanges. It encourages direct participation in sustainable efforts through enabling students to bond over a common interest in second-hand fashion.
“The focus [of the mini swap] is on the vendors, just giving a platform to students here who want to sell their creations,” Zaniya Trotman, co-outreach chair and second-year College student, said.
As Co-Outreach Chair, Trotman is responsible for collaborating with other student and faculty-led organizations around Grounds and in the greater Charlottesville area. The inclusion of student vendors for the first time displays the club’s outreach efforts in action.
Brian Douglas, co-outreach chair and third-year Education student, spoke about the socially-oriented nature of SWAP mini. Douglas said the smaller size of the event allows an additional “opportunity to swap [and] to meet more people” aside from the regular exchanges.
Garden IX was strategically oriented to support this focus on socializing. One side was used for the customary clothing exchange where students could trade clothing for tickets and then spend those tickets on new clothing that other students had donated. The other half was filled with a section of student vendors. These vendors offered everything from second-hand/handcrafted clothing to accessories available for purchase — even a booth offering clothing alterations.
At the event, students of varying degrees of involvement in Swap could be found swapping and shopping in the socially-inviting atmosphere. Lily MacKenzie, Swap member and first-year College student, talked about her experience with the organization and how it has enabled her to engage with the community in different ways.
“I've met a ton of cool people through it…it's a really good mix of social [opportunities] and then also helping the environment,” MacKenzie said.
At the event’s end, nearly every clothing rack and table had been cleared. Students who had finished their swapping lingered and continued socializing with the vendors, Swap members and each other — a successful small-scale exchange.
In a broader sense, the event was proof of the club’s commitment to growing and diversifying their slate of activities and events, setting the stage for more events to be held later on this semester. As Trotman put it, the mini swap is “like a taste, like an appetizer before the main course.” Currently, there’s a “big” — or traditional — swap scheduled for this winter, which will feature an even greater vendor presence, more areas to swap and the addition of live music.
But the larger-scale swap isn’t the only thing planned for the club, as other smaller events like socials, game nights and group thrifting trips in Charlottesville are scheduled to take place in the coming weeks.
Swap’s diverse and varied offering of club activities makes it an inviting place where anyone and everyone can connect, and Friday’s mini swap made that abundantly clear.
“We're a little bit of everything,” Trotman said. “We're crazy, we're funny, we're funky and we're fresh. And we're here for everyone.”
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