Grad Bag

In honor of Indigenous Peoples' Day, Grad Bag is closed for operations today.

Indigenous Peoples' Day celebrates Indigenous American peoples, and it commemorates their histories and cultures. While federally recognized as "Columbus Day" in the US, celebration of Indigenous Peoples' Day began in 1977 during the International NGO Conference on Discrimination Against Indigenous Populations in the Americans; citing the lasting harm that Indigenous tribes suffered due to European colonization of the Americas. Some states, such as Maine, South Dakota, and Vermont, recognize this date as a state holiday under the name of "Indigenous Peoples' Day", and in 2021, the White House collaborated with Indigenous activists to create a proclamation of Indigenous Peoples' Day.

By celebrating Indigenous Peoples' Day, we are honor the impact and resilience of Indigenous people - past, present, and future - and showcase the importance of Indigenous peoples in the cultural fabric of today's society. We hope you will take the day to celebrate the contributions of Indigenous people throughout the US, and that you learn more about the tribes and cultures of the original inhabitants of the land on which you are currently living (we recommend utilizing the resources at )

While classes are just beginning for many students, Grad Bag is ready to give its summer session report card!

This summer, we were able to divert ♻️ 21 TONS of material from landfills!
Those items were distributed to 📚 700 STUDENTS heading to college this semester.

Grad Bag is so honored to have had the support of local colleges and universities, businesses, transportation and storage companies, laundry facilities, location partners, and businesses. Their support and financial contributions from donors like you help make our mission possible.

🎉 Congratulations to everyone settling in for the fall semester! 🎉

With classes underway, the dorm room becomes a crucial space to study, relax, and make new connections. Show us how you've set up your space for success this year: Tag in your stories to inspire others!

LAST CHANCE to enter our virtual giveaway!

Check out our original post for more details, and don't forget to tag us in your stories for an extra bonus entry into our giveaway!

Every year, Grad Bag works with colleges, student success programs, transportation companies, cleaners, storage specialists, volunteers, and location partners to bring gently used dorm items into the hands of incoming dorm-bound first-year students. We could not do this without our partners, and we are so grateful for the assistance we receive from each and every one of them.

To Our Boston area partners: UNITS® Moving & Portable Storage of Northeast MA,Piece By Piece Moving and Storage, LLC, Temple Shalom of Newton, Suffolk University and the Suffolk University Center for Community Engagement, Emerson College, Tufts University, University of Massachusetts Lowell, Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering, Wellesley College, Lasell University, College Bound Advising (CBA), Saltwater Canvas

Our partners in New York: A.B. Richards Storage Equipment Rentals, Go Minis Moving & Portable Storage, Westchester Reform Temple, Westchester Community College, Barnard College, Columbia University, Connecticut College, Fordham University, Iona University, New York University, Sarah Lawrence College, Trinity College,

And a very special shoutout to Unitex who provides the high grade sanitation and cleaning services for our linens to students at both locations!

Thank you all for making this year's donation season a success!

OUR VIRTUAL GIVEAWAY ENDS IN JUST 4 DAYS!!!

Thank you to all who have liked, shared, and tagged their friends in our giveaway post! We are so excited to see new friends on our channels! 🤩

Remember to like the original giveaway post and see the caption for more information on how to earn extra entries.

Thank you for continuing to support Grad Bag, and GOOD LUCK TO ALL!

🎉 GRAD BAG VIRTUAL GIVEAWAY🎉

As a "thank you" to all of our loyal followers and generous supporters, Grad Bag is gifting one lucky winner with a gift pack including:

✨ $100 Gift Card
✨ 24 oz Hydro Flask water bottle
..plus a vinyl Grad Bag sticker for your car or water bottle!

Here's how to enter:
1. Make sure to LIKE THIS POST & FOLLOW Grad Bag on Instagram or Facebook. (Double your chances by liking & following both!)
2. Tag 2 friends in the comments of this post

For an extra entry, share this post to your stories and Tag . If you have a private account, screenshot and DM us to make sure you get your extra entry!

This giveaway will close at midnight ET on August 15th, and we will do a live drawing for the winner on August 16th at noon.

Good luck, and thank you all for your support of Grad Bag!

(Fine Print:
Winner will be chosen by random draw and contacted by DM. If the selected winner is unable to respond with a valid address within 48 hours, an alternate winner will be be selected via random draw. Grad Bag will never ask for your CC info, so please do not fall for any duplicate accounts or scammers! This is not a paid promotion/partnership with Dormify or Hydro Flask. This giveaway is not sponsored, endorsed, administered by, or associated with Instagram.)

What an exciting week! At our events in New York and Boston, Grad Bag outfitted more than 500 students with dorm essentials to help outfit their first year on campus. We are so excited for all of these college-bound students to experience the joy of college move-in!

In the spirit of preparing for move-in, we want to share some of our favorite words of wisdom and advice on how to have a low-stress and well-prepared move-in experience. Starting with this scheduling idea: coordinate with your future roommate to make sure you each have the time and space to move your items into the dorm. Start your roommate relationship off right by respecting each other's schedules, and give yourself the opportunity to move around freely with carts and boxes without bumping into one another!

What advice would you share with someone heading off to ?

🎉 Exciting announcement 🎉

Grad Bag is doing our first-ever VIRTUAL giveaway!

Throughout the summer, our team has been gearing up for our Boston and New York Giveaway Events with our grantee partners. In celebration of this hard work, we want to also offer one of our lucky followers a chance to win a prize package with a VIRTUAL GIVEAWAY! This opportunity is open to all our followers and gives 🌟 YOU 🌟 the chance to win some great items from Grad Bag. Stay tuned next week as we reveal all the details 🎉

And finally… thank you to Olin College for their generous donations! 🚪📦 Our storage unit was overflowing with rolling carts, laundry baskets, and other essentials. The students at today’s Giveaway Day Event appreciated the great variety of items to choose from to decorate their own dorm rooms this fall!

Shoutout to UMass Lowell for their amazing bed linen donations! 🛏️💙 Your generosity made a big impact!

Thank you to Emerson College for their generous donations! 🙌 Our team excitedly cleaned and prepared items for incoming first year college-bound students. Our Boston Giveaway Days were a success thanks to partners like you 🎉

Our Giveaway Days have begun!!!

Sending a huge thank you to Wellesley College and our in-kind partner Unitex for all of the linens!

Wellesley donated an incredible volume of quality linens to be redistributed to incoming first-year students. In both our Boston and New York areas, Unitex sanitizes and launders donated linens before they are sorted, folded, and given new life at our Giveaway Days. We couldn’t do this without your support and generosity!

Continuing our gratitude with a special thanks to Lasell University! Thank you for your continued support of Grad Bag and the students served through your donations 🎓

A huge shoutout to our amazing donors at Suffolk University! 🎉 Thanks to your donations, we're able to provide essential dorm items and support a sustainable and equitable transition to college life. Our team appreciates all of your efforts to make this year a success for local students!

Our team in Boston has also been busy collecting linens and other dorm essentials from partner universities in the area! Join us as we celebrate these partnerships in the days leading up to our big Giveaway Day Events. Starting with... Tufts University!

Thank you to our friends at Tufts University for their donations! By repurposing gently-used items, we're creating sustainable solutions and supporting college-bound students. Join us in making a greener, fairer future one dorm room at a time.

Once our incredible laundry partner, Unitex, returns linens to our teams, our summer staff gets to work sorting towels, sheet sets, and comforters in preparation for our give-away days. Sometimes, other donated items find their way into the laundry, like these shark suits! What caption would you give this?

UPDATE: We are still in need of Twin XL bedding and towels for our give-away events this summer. We've also created an Amazon Wish List (https://buff.ly/4eGnCUQ ) to help direct those who wish to send items to our team.

As a reminder, we welcome clean, gently used items. Contact our team to arrange a drop-off or shipment of items now through mid-July!

In honor of Juneteenth, Grad Bag is closed for operations today.

Juneteenth is a federal and state holiday for both our New York and Massachusetts offices. It marks the official end of more than 200 years of slavery in the US when on 19 June 1865, word of the Emancipation Proclamation reached the final group of enslaved persons in Galveston, Texas. The newly freed people of Texas declared the occasion as "Juneteenth", and it has been celebrated by Black communities as a symbol of hope for generations. Recognized as a federal holiday in 2021, Juneteenth has become known as "America's second Independence Day" in recognition of the progress marked by freed people in the US.

We hope you also take the day to celebrate independence and the end of slavery in the USA, and to honor the ongoing work to provide equality and justice for all!

Since its inception more than a decade ago, Grad Bag has worked to create an equitable, sustainable transition to college for area students. We collect donations from partner universities to help take gently used dorm items and help them change hands from one group of students to the next. This year's incoming first-year class is quite robust, and we could use your help furnishing linens for their use!

How to help:
☑️ Look through your linen closets and storage items to find gently used towels or Twin and Twin XL sheets, comforters, and duvet covers.
-OR- organize a linens drive within your community networks.
☑️ Clean them in your washing machine and dry them.
☑️ Contact our Executive Director, Amber Lively, to find out where to send or drop off your donated items!

We are accepting cleaned linens through mid-July, but early donations are greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance for your support!

Last week, our New York team received the last of their scheduled donations from local colleges and universities. We are so thankful for our college partners, such as Iona University, who help us outfit incoming first-year students in the fall! Next, our team will send linens off to be cleaned and will wash all of the "hard items" by hand to ensure they are sanitized and ready for redistribution. Thank you, Iona University, for helping us to give dorm items a new life!

Our organization relies on donations from generous Colleges and Universities to help continue our mission. We are thankful to partners like Wesleyan University who provide us with gently used items to help furnish dorm rooms for incoming first-year students this fall!

One of the most in-demand items that students need to furnish their dorms is bedding - especially those in size "Twin Extra-Long". Outside of the dorm rooms, there are few places where these sheets and comforters can be used. That's why we are always so excited to see donations that have so many linens to get a second life! Thank you to Trinity College for your donation of linens for our 2024 collection season - these items will find new life in the hands of students entering college this fall semester!

Did you know that Grad Bag partners with Universities throughout the Northeast?! Both our New York and our Boston teams receive donations from outside of their greater metropolitan areas. Take for example Connecticut College, who not only organized a drive for items, but their team also made the drive from New London, CT, to our New York team with a van full of dorm essentials! Thank you to the team at for all of your hard work and support of Grad Bag!

Last week, our founder, Liz Gruber, joined Barnard Sustainability as they loaded the truck full of dorm essentials for another successful year of clean outs! Our team is busy sorting and cleaning hard items this week, and linens will be sent off to our partners for cleaning soon. This is such an exciting time for all of us at Grad Bag, and we are so grateful for all of our University partners for helping us to collect during move-out!