The Morongo Unified School District (CA) selected Sierra School Equipment Company to replace some 15,000 student desks, tables, and chairs across eleven different schools. Karen Stevens, the District’s Director of Purchasing, asked if Sierra could suggest a better option for the old furniture than throwing it in a landfill. The Sierra team made an introduction to The Reuse Network.
Morongo USD is located in the Mojave high desert in California, about 150 miles east of Los Angeles. It serves more than 8,000 students in 11 elementary, 2 middle, and 2 high schools. Sierra’s crews removed the old furnishings from Morongo’s schools as they replaced them, and took the furnishings to several stockpile locations across the district.
From these stockpiles, our longtime partner the King Companies loaded Reuse Network trailers as they arrived. Divided into two phases, the project filled 21 trailers for reuse plus two (with items damaged or otherwise unsuitable for reuse) sent a local recycling facility. In all, The Reuse Network placed over 14,000 items for reuse, including some 5,700 student desks, 7,800 chairs, 650 work/activity tables, and 100 other pieces.
No one or two of The Reuse Network’s partner charities was capable of absorbing this quantity. Martha Goettelmann, Director of Nonprofit Engagement, spent dozens of hours identifying and coordinating with eight different charities that accepted portions of Morongo’s inventory. Logistics Manager Jim Buchholz spent as many hours or more setting up the 23 individual shipments that left Morongo for eleven separate destinations in seven countries including Haiti, Mexico, Kenya, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, and the United States.
This project helped achieve Morongo USD’s sustainability objectives, enabling the District to reduce waste while benefitting students in six countries: a wonderful example of environmental and social responsibility going hand in hand. Choosing to repurpose unneeded school furniture, Morongo USD demonstrated leadership in waste reduction, and at the same time contributed to improving educational opportunities for tens of thousands of disadvantaged children, for many years to come.
