By Ella Willmot, Contributing Writer
On Tuesday from 6 to 8 p.m., the College’s Gettysburg Thrifts club and ARTEM hosted an event in the newly renovated Rogers Center for Innovation and Creativity (RCIC) in the basement of Plank Gym. Students were invited to create their own costumes out of resources available in the Rogers center, along with donated clothes collected by Gburg Thrifts.
(By Grace Jurchak/The Gettysburgian)
One of the host groups, ARTEM, is a club on campus focused on allowing students who are interested in art to participate in club-provided art projects as well as their own artistic endeavors. The group emphasizes freedom of expression and creativity for those who may not have the opportunity to in an academic setting.
The ARTEM president, Delaney Stahl ’27, a psychology and cinema & media studies double major, said that “ARTEM is about harnessing creativity” and “being creative on campus in spaces where you can’t always be creative.” Stahl went on to say that ARTEM can be a great space for “…people who want to do art but aren’t in art studio classes.”
By hosting extra-curricular events for all Gettysburg students, ARTEM makes creativity available to everyone. This idea is especially useful during the Halloween season, which Stahl says can be a “super wasteful holiday.” By encouraging students to make a costume instead of buying one, ARTEM and Gburg Thrifts hope to reduce the amount of one-time use items that are typically bought for things such as costumes and decorations.
(By Grace Jurchak/The Gettysburgian)
GBurg Thrifts, run by president Dylan Wascavage ’27, an environmental studies and public policy double major, is a non-profit organization on campus that provides students with affordable, accessible, and sustainable secondhand ways to shop. They also hope to educate students on the environmental impacts of fast-fashion habits and production, while raising money for environmental and social justice causes with the money they earn from selling secondhand clothes.
Wascavage expressed that the club “has a lot of clothes that…aren’t getting sold,” and that this event is a great way to “get people to use clothes that they normally wouldn’t use.” Wascavage hopes that this can be a “way to try and get people to think twice when getting their Halloween costumes.”
(By Grace Jurchak/The Gettysburgian)
Students were encouraged to utilize donated clothes to create their own Halloween costumes, rather than going out and buying something new. They were free to leave as is or alter it in any way that they choose, aided by the plethora of supplies in the RCIC, such as sewing machines, free to use fabric, sublimation printing, embroidery and typical craft supplies like scissors and acrylic paint.
Together, ARTEM and Gburg Thrifts combined their messages on the importance of creative expression and sustainable clothing practices with a shared excitement for the upcoming Halloween season to create a fun and festive event welcome to all students.
