Last Saturday, we took a tour to the nonprofit organization SewGreen in downtown Ithaca. I have not been to many nonprofit organizations, so that aspect was very interesting. Firstly, the store itself was very nicely laid out, and all of the fabrics and materials looked as if they were brand new even though they were recycled. One of the motivations for the store was the realization that so many tend to just discard their sewing materials, because they don’t know what else to do with them. Creating SewGreen allowed those materials to be put to good use while in turn helping the environment.

The director of SewGreen, Ms. Wendy Skinner, was very enthusiastic and gave a great discussion of what motivated her to help start SewGreen. She was interested in helping the environment, but she wanted to do it in a way that was original. That’s how she got the idea to combine her interest in sewing with the helping the environment. I really liked how she pointed out that anyone with any major can play a role in supporting our planet. This was significant to me in particular since I am very interested in getting involved with renewable energy research, as I am majoring in engineering physics.