When Bates College environmental coordinator Julie Rosenbach places cartons marked “Clean Sweep” in the college’s dorms each spring, students know just what to do.

In those cartons and at the college’s ice arena, they drop off small furnishings, electronics, sports gear and other useable stuff they won’t take along when they leave campus this spring. These goodies will be offered for sale at Clean Sweep, Bates’ annual “garage sale” that keeps truckloads of useful items out of the waste stream and raises money for nonprofit organizations in the region.

The ninth Clean Sweep sale takes place from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, June 20, at the college’s Underhill Arena, 145 Russell St. The sale is open to the public. To learn more, please contact Rosenbach at 207-786-8367 or jrosenba@bates.edu.

(NOTE: The summer 2009 edition of “Bates Invites You,” Bates College’s events calendar, incorrectly stated that the public is invited to help staff or donate items to Clean Sweep. We regret the error.)

Bates is one of a number of colleges and universities nationwide that benefit both the environment and their communities each year by selling possessions donated by students as they head out at the end of the academic year.

Bates’ event has become a tradition on campus and in the region. Different nonprofits participate every year and the boxes Rosenbach places in dormitories are always filled to overflowing.

“People look forward to the sale. They expect it,” Rosenbach says. “And they really like being a part of it.”

This year, at least 10 nonprofit organizations will be taking part by collecting goods from around campus, helping organize the sale or volunteering at the event.

In 2008, more than 115 people from 14 local nonprofit organizations volunteered 1,000 hours of collecting, sorting, cleaning, organizing, pricing and selling items. Less than 1 percent of sale items ended up in the trash, and the sale raised nearly $12,000 for participating nonprofits.

The eighth annual Clean Sweep, the Bates College “garage sale” of appliances, furnishings, electronics and other goods donated by departing students, raised nearly $12,000 in proceeds that will be divided among 14 local nonprofit organizations.

A community tradition, the June 14 sale drew droves of eager bargain-hunters to the college’s Underhill Arena, on Russell Street.

Bates is one of a number of colleges and universities nationwide that benefit both local nonprofit organizations and the environment by selling useful possessions donated by students as they head out at the end of the academic year.

The sale both keeps unwanted possessions out of the waste stream and raises money for the organizations. Nonprofits supply volunteers to help staff the event, and in return receive a share of the proceeds proportionate to the amount of time volunteered.

“More than 115 volunteers from the nonprofits put in a total of about 1,000 hours collecting, sorting, cleaning, organizing, pricing and selling an arena full of items that would have otherwise gone to waste,” says Julie Rosenbach, the college’s environmental coordinator.

“It made a difference,” she says. “I estimate that we sold approximately 85 percent of the items collected,” with the participating nonprofits and Bates employees taking their pick from the remainder. “In the end, less than 1 percent of everything we collected went into the trash.”

Items donated by Bates students and the community included appliances, furniture, sporting goods, housewares and electronics, books, toys, clothes and shoes.

The beneficiaries of the June 14 event were: Caleb Community Garden; Common Ties; First Universalist Church; Justice, Ecology and Democracy Collective; Life Center; Literacy Volunteers; Lots to Gardens; Maine Fair Trade Campaign; Maine People’s Alliance; Our Lady of the Rosary; Sandcastle Preschool; Share Center; Somali Bantu Community Association; and TriCounty Mental Health Services.

This year’s sale raised $11,897. Last year, 18 local school and nonprofit organizations divided $17,648 in proceeds. The total for 2006 was around $10,000.

– Office of Communications and Media Relations

Jamie Merisotis `86 and president of the Institute for Higher Education Policy in Washington, D.C., will join Richard Willing, executive director of L/A Arts; Marty McIntyre `73, executive director of the Sexual Assault Crisis Center in Auburn; and Paul Rubin, executive director of Faithworks in Lewiston for the presentation.

The identification and management of opportunities in social renewal through private and not-for-profit initiatives or community agencies will be carefully reviewed at this meeting. Topics to be explored include how social change, charitable and health and human service organizations share in the entrepreneurial process. Particular attention will be given to the creative and skillful identification of foundation, community, government and corporate involvement for these ventures. Since most service and community enterprises return profits into benefit enhancements, entrepreneurial success for venture developers and managers in these areas also will be investigated.

Aimed at both students and community members, the Bates Seminar Series in Entrepreneurship is an integrated set of lectures and presentations covering the entrepreneurial process, its history and manifestations from conception to implementation of a new venture. The sessions focus on attributes of entrepreneurs, their search and assessment of opportunities and the identification and obtainment of resources that transform ideas into new endeavors. The series exposes the unique ways that the fundamental characteristics of a liberal arts education can be applied in a variety of new enterprises.

The seminar series will rely heavily on Bates alumni, parents and Maine entrepreneurs engaged in a variety of projects, as well as experts and researchers in the field. The next presentation will be “Scientific and Medical Entrepreneurship” at 7 p.m. Friday, Feb. 11, in the Edmund S. Muskie Archives.

For more information, call the Bates College Office of Career Services at 207-786-6232 or check the seminar series on this web site.