It's the curse of the middle child: your older sister's worn out jean jacket that went out of style two years before she bought it is now the only thing you have for the first day of school. Hand-me-downs can make your closet look like the wardrobe trailer for a John Hughes movie. But a new service from Penn's
Wharton School of Business ensures that your kids won't suffer like you did.
It's called
Drop Swop, a children's clothing trade-in service that allows parents to trade in their child's unwanted or outgrown clothes for points that can be put toward a growing online collection of gently used clothing cast-offs. A simple concept could have only come from experience and founder Marcus Hathaway says his inspiration came a little over a year ago after moving from California to attend Wharton.
"At that time, my son was growing, going through his clothes so we had piles of clothes that we just ended up storing in his room," says Hathaway. "We kept buying more clothes and storing clothes and he didn't even have a chance to wear most of the stuff."
Like the clothes that have become its specialty, rapid growth caused
Drop Swop to outgrow its original location at the University of
Pennsylvania. Today, parents can find Drop Swop bins at
Turning Points for Children in Center City and at the
Caring People Alliance at the
West Philadelphia Community Center as well as Penn's
Family Resource Center in University City. As the word spreads, Hathaway hopes to add more facilities and staff to fill them in the coming year.
"When we talked to our friends and members of our family, we recognized that ours was a shared experience," says Hathaway. "Drop Swop was a way to interact and help parents get the most out of their kids' clothes."
Source: Marcus Hathaway, Drop Swop
Writer: John Steele