Joan Mayen, who started the Don’t Throw It, Donate It! program at UW-River Falls in 2006, right, talks about the effort with Mark Klapatch-Mathias, UWRF sustainability coordinator, left, as they sort through items. Mayen, recently retired, announced she is stepping down from overseeing the program, but plans to remain involved with it. UWRF photo.
 

Coordinator of move-out collection effort leaving a legacy

Don’t Throw It, Donate It! program has saved tons of items from landfill, offered to people in need

Oct. 2, 2024 - A dinner conversation in spring 2005 has turned into an effort that has saved nearly 60,000 pounds of items from a landfill and has given them another use while helping people in the process. 
 
In May 2005, River Falls resident Joan Mayen was having dinner with her daughter Brittany, who was a senior at River Falls High School. Brittany said she and some friends were going dumpster diving at the nearby University of Wisconsin-River Falls. 
 
Joan was surprised. Dumpster diving? 
 
Brittany explained that some of her high school classmates searched through the many objects that UW-River Falls students discarded at the end of the academic year, finding valuable items to keep in the process.
 
That revelation motivated Joan and her husband Mike (Joan recently retired as a financial specialist at UW-River Falls having previously managed the campus Information Desk; Mike retired last year as campus painter) to take action. Concerned about useful items being discarded, they decided to start an annual collection of articles otherwise destined for dumpsters. 
 
They met with UWRF Residence Life Department personnel to discuss starting an annual collection effort, providing students the opportunity to donate items they no longer wanted to River Falls nonprofit organizations. The effort, titled Don’t Throw It, Donate It!, began in 2006.
 
Since then, the collection has occurred on campus for three weeks each spring through final exam week, with students donating items they would otherwise throw away. Joan, Mike, and other members of the Don’t Throw It, Donate It! team sort and pack the items and deliver them to River Falls nonprofit organizations. 
 
Initially, River Falls businesses Treasures from the Heart and Second Chances, along with the River Falls Food Pantry, received donations from the program. Our Neighbors’ Place, a daytime service center for unhoused residents and others in need, and the River Falls School District subsequently were added to the donations list.
 
Those receiving the donations through the years praised the effort, saying it not only saves items from the landfill but provides the much-needed items to people who otherwise often couldn’t afford them. For example, Our Neighbors’ Place receives food, personal care items, clothing, shoes, and household items such as area rugs, fans and vacuum cleaners. The nonprofit agency in turn is able to provide those items to people in need of them, said Shelly Smith, executive director of Our Neighbors’ Place.  
 
“We’re so grateful to receive all of these items,” Smith said. “These donations make a huge, positive difference in the lives of our clients. Without Joan and this program, we simply wouldn’t be able to provide people with this kind of assistance.”
 
Growth, partnership
 
From 2006-15, Mike, Joan and family members worked diligently to collect clothing, personal care and household items, and nonperishable food donated by students and hauled it, load by load, in their pickup truck from campus to their garage. From there they sorted and packed items for donation, the amount of which continued to grow year by year. 
 
In the program’s early years, Joan said she didn’t track the number of items donated and their weight. She began recording that information in 2012, a year when the effort collected 1,695 items totaling 1.19 tons. By 2016, those figures had increased to 5,102 items and 2.87 tons. Totals for 2024 were the highest yet, at 5,403 items and 3.98 tons.
 
Since 2012, collections total 46,353 items and 29.41 tons.  
 
To accommodate the larger number of donations, the Mayens added a 16-foot-long trailer for hauling. They recruited family members to help with the effort. 
 
“Each year the number of items collected grew more and more,” Joan said. “The generosity of the students was remarkable.”
 
By 2016, a decade after the start of Don’t Throw It, Donate It!, the effort was stretched thin because of the program’s growing success. Joan, Mike, and their family could no longer keep up with demand. Space in the Mayens’ garage wasn’t adequate for storing and sorting donated items. 
 
Joan then met with Mark Klapatch-Mathias, UWRF sustainability coordinator, to discuss the manpower and space shortage. Klapatch-Mathias had a solution: space on campus to serve as a collection and sorting site, and student volunteers to help with the labor. Joan and Klapatch-Mathias formed a planning committee to operate the program as efficiently as possible.
 
Klapatch-Mathias said partnering with Mayen and Don’t Throw It, Donate It! made sense for UWRF. The program addresses social, economic, and environmental sustainability, he said, and offers UWRF students an exceptional hands-on learning opportunity in which they feel they can make a personal difference. 
 
“With a goal of diverting items from a landfill and the partnerships in place to donate to local community organizations, the program benefits our direct campus operations as well as our broader community,” he said.  
 
In addition, the UWRF Sustainability Office and the university’s Green Team student organization joined the Residence Life Department in supporting Don’t Throw It, Donate It! As time progressed, more students, faculty, and staff became part of the effort.
 
“The generous offer of space on campus and the additional volunteers sent the program to new heights,” Joan said. 
 
‘Breath of fresh air’
 
Students who worked with Joan praise her warm, caring personality. Former student Kellie Claflin recalled first meeting Joan in 2007, when Joan managed the campus Information Desk, and being struck by her empathy for students.
 
“I remember how welcoming, kind and caring she was,” Claflin said of Joan. “She truly cared about us and our success. She really helped shape how I approach work and working with others.” 
 
Claflin, now an assistant professor in the Department of Agricultural Communication, Education, and Leadership at Ohio State University, and Joan keep in touch. Joan visited Claflin when she lived in Oregon. When Claflin returns to the River Falls area, she and Joan get together. 
 
“If I'm going through something where I need somebody to just listen and care and be sincere and vulnerable, Joan’s that person. She's just so wonderful,” Claflin said.
 
Klapatch-Mathias noted Joan’s skilled mentoring of students she worked with through the years. Her warm, considerate personality helped students find their place and gain self-confidence, he said.
 
“Joan’s efforts to start and run the move out program for so many years demonstrates exactly who she is – someone who cares for people and the planet,” Klapatch-Mathias said. 
 
Joan is grateful for the opportunity to work with students and other Don’t Throw It, Donate It! volunteers through the years.
 
“Working with the students of UWRF is a breath of fresh air, not to mention motivating and fun,” Joan said. “They are committed to the River Falls community and sustainability. Their outstanding work ethic, time and talents are the reason for the success of this program.”
 
The move out collection was put on hold in 2020 and 2021 because of the coronavirus pandemic. Joan wondered what it would look like when it resumed the following year, but collection totals in 2022 were strong and have continued to grow since.
 
While she is giving up overseeing Don’t Throw It, Donate It!, Joan and Mike plan to stay involved with the effort that has become a two-decades-long labor of love. They are heartened to see how much the program has grown. They are grateful for the fact that so many items that would have gone to a landfill have instead found a useful place.  
 
“My hope is that the passion for this program continues,” Joan said. “UW-River Falls is a special place and the passion of the people there will keep this effort going into the future.”