MIDDLEBURY, Vt.-Victims of Hurricane Charley will soon receive a shipment of furniture from Middlebury College. This week, 1,500 pieces of furniture, made available due to a scheduled replacement of dormitory furnishings in some residence halls, were loaded onto nine tractor trailers owned by the international charity Feed the Children, and trucked to their regional distribution center in New Brunswick, N.J. From there, some of these durable wooden furnishings and metal bed frames will be sent to aid victims of Hurricane Charley. Others will go to a host of additional locations to support homeless shelters and low-income, first-time homeowners.

Assistant Director of Custodial Services Linda Ross, who coordinated the effort to redistribute the furniture, worked with the Institutional Recycling Network (IRN), a New England-based cooperative specializing in marketing recyclables generated by institutions. IRN, working with the charities Operation Compassion and Food for the Poor, inventoried the donation, contracted with a local moving company to pack the transport vehicles, and scheduled the pick up.

Middlebury College has donated more than 2,100 pieces of furniture and twin mattresses from six different residence halls since last May. IRN came to campus three times to coordinate the redistribution of residence hall furnishings. The first donation occurred just days after the end of exams last spring, and included 315 desks, bookcases, bureaus and bed frames. Employing a two-shift crew, Gero Brothers, a moving company located in Essex Junction, packed 40-foot shipping containers owned by Food for the Poor, which is an international charity that provides aid to impoverished areas in Latin America and the Caribbean. Customs applied its seal, and the shipment was trucked to a Northeast terminal and subsequently sent to a region where the supplies were most needed.

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