GFS Environmental Action Club Promotes Sustainable Fashion with Secondhand Clothing Swap

Pink and turquoise flowers blooming across a Hawaiian button-up. A pair of retro white go-go boots. A gold-black Adidas Disney Centennial t-shirt. 

These are just a few of the secondhand gems eagerly scooped up by the crowd of students, faculty, and staff that flooded into the All School Commons for the annual clothing swap organized by GFS' Environmental Action Club (EAC).

"It's not very fun to be like, 'We need to consume less,' or 'We need to cut back,'” said Daisy Bidwell ’25, a leader of the EAC. “The clothing swap is a great way to make sustainability topics exciting for the student body and to get more people involved."

 
Fast fashion is a source of massive amounts of pollution, with 85% of textiles going to waste rather than being reused or recycled, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Studies have shown that social media and widespread advertising is particularly impactful to young people, influencing them into buying impulsively.

The EAC, which hosts events throughout the year, including the Earth Day Fair and Lower School assemblies, organizes clothing swaps in both the fall and spring. The swaps are highly anticipated events, as evidenced by the throngs of students trying on each other's donated clothing and accessories, which the EAC collected in bins across campus.

"It's like thrifting, but at school," said Abby Delgado ’27, who had acquired a vest, some tees, and a pair of shoes at the swap. "I like buying everything secondhand—almost everything I wear is secondhand. I think it's really important and powerful that people are able to say 'I don't like this anymore,' but can still share it with someone else. It's less wasteful that way."

The clothing swap doesn’t only attract hardcore-thrifters at GFS—there were plenty of first-time swappers diving into the donated clothes.

 
“That blue one is so you!” said Luca Farrell ’27 to a friend who had unearthed a faded denim button-up. The newcomers were racing between the donation tables, showing off their latest finds for each other.

In the aftermath of the event, once the masses of students hauled away their new-used finds, the club organizers began cleaning up and preparing what remained of the collected goods for donation.

 
"After the clothing swap, everyone's always wearing each other's stuff,” said Zoe Levenstien ’26, another of the organizers. “It creates connections between people who might never have spoken to each other before.”

Daisy Bidwell ’25 (left) and Zoe Levenstien ’26 (right) are two EAC leaders that helped organize the clothing swap.