We see boxes and packages from a ubiquitous multinational e-commerce company everywhere, and it usually represents a good feeling: Something we’ve ordered has arrived!
Until 2022, when a package from the digital retailer came into the package station at the Student Dining and Residential Programs Building that was undeliverable for any reason, the staff just called an 800 number, and a driver would come to campus the next day to pick it up and return it to the sender.
But about a year and a half ago, the online retail giant’s drivers stopped picking up those undeliverable packages.
The change in the company’s policy left staff in the package station at the SDRP feeling … well, boxed in.
For Kari Mattfolk and her team, this was a quickly escalating issue.
“When it first started happening, we realized that we were running out of room for these packages that need to be returned,” said Mattfolk, who was the program buildings coordinator for Residential Life at the time.
The staff at the package station at the SDRP can process nearly 50,000 packages a semester.
“At the beginning of the semester, we can process up to 1,000 packages a day,” Mattfolk said.
This includes packages intended for students in Champaign residence halls, plus supplies needed for University Housing maintenance, facilities and programming purposes.
Packages are also received and processed in Urbana residence halls and in Family & Graduate Housing apartments, albeit on a smaller scale, but the staff at those locations faced the same challenges regarding the undeliverable packages.
Mattfolk said there are a number of reasons why a package might be unclaimed or undeliverable, despite her team’s best efforts.
A package often arrives without a proper name or address on it, making it impossible to determine where it's supposed to go. They also receive packages for former residents who may have forgotten to update their address after leaving University Housing, and the staff also receives packages that were simply delivered to the wrong location and sometimes the wrong city.
Mattfolk said the policy is to hold onto unclaimed items for 45 days.
When packages arrive for current residents, the staff emails the student right away and continues following up, sending up to 14 emails to each student per package delivered. Text message notifications are also an option for residents. Most, but not all students will come to the package station to pick up their item.
With the e-commerce company’s change in policy, Mattfolk said hundreds of unclaimed and undeliverable packages began piling up.
She said there were numerous attempts to work with the retailer and its drivers to take the packages back. There was even some confusion among upper management at the multinational e-commerce company, which thought drivers were picking up the items that could not be delivered.
When it was clear the company was not interested and not going to return the unclaimed and undeliverable items, it became University Housing’s problem to figure out.
The solution wouldn’t come in a day.
"How are people handling this?"
Beyond the issue of where to temporarily store everything, there were many other questions to consider, including potential legal claims and ramifications. No one wanted the perfectly good items to go to waste and be thrown into a landfill, creating a negative environmental impact.
University Housing leadership and the university’s legal counsel looked at the problem from all angles.
“It was a very long process,” Mattfolk said, “to look through all the different policies that were on campus as far as unclaimed items, lost and found, how we handle the situation. This is something new.”
They also sought outside guidance for best practices.
“We looked across other campuses and how they are handling this,” Mattfolk said. “We are not the only university facing this. Apartment complexes are facing this, businesses are facing this – how are people handling this?”
Ultimately, Housing leadership came up with a solution that everyone felt good about: The unclaimed and undeliverable packages would be donated to local charities and organizations, and when possible, the donated items would be designated for students in need.
Mattfolk said Director of Residential Life Herb Jones and Housing’s executive team selected the recipients.
“I was really, really excited when Herb reached out to us about this,” said Marc Alexander, director of development and membership at the University YMCA.
The University YMCA and its New American Welcome Center is one of the organizations receiving the packages donated by University Housing, along with Campus Recreation’s Food Assistance & Well-Being Program at the Activities & Recreation Center; Strides Shelter, operated by the City of Champaign Township; and Salt & Light, which has locations in Champaign and Urbana.
For the University YMCA, this isn’t the first time they’ve teamed up with Housing.
According to Alexander, the University YMCA began its Dump & Run concept more than 20 years ago, which involves collecting usable items from students and community members, then making them available at affordable prices during its “Big Sale,” held during Move-In weekend each year in August.
In 2019, the University YMCA began working more closely with Housing and Facilities & Services, with Housing promoting the event to its residents and F&S collecting items directly from residence halls.
Now, Housing is donating items such as clothing, shoes, linens, electronics and hygiene and toiletry items to the University YMCA, some of which were made available during the Big Sale at low prices during Move-In weekend, while others were allocated for the New American Welcome Center.
Alexander said the Move-In weekend sale helps fund Dump & Run, and proceeds go to the “work we do in the community, whether that is other environmental work, whether it’s with students, whether that is work with the New American Welcome Center. There are lots of things that happen here, and the program helps to fund all of that.”
According to Alexander, the New American Welcome Center works directly with the immigrant community in Champaign-Urbana and throughout Champaign County, providing a variety of services and access to resources to help create “a community where all immigrants can thrive and flourish.”
But Alexander said the bigger idea is “to collect usable goods people no longer want or need, and instead of throwing them away, they donate them to the program; so that saves, in a given year, an estimated 30 tons out of area landfills.”
Alexander said some of the packages they’ve received in Housing’s donation have included “small appliances like hairdryers, curlers and that sort of thing. Some small computer items like chargers, mice and keyboards, headphones, brand new clothing ... brand new shoes, rollerblades, sweatshirts, toiletries, so things that you might think of that are used in a [residence hall] room.”
Mattfolk said before donations could be made, staff had to open all packages, scratch off names and addresses if necessary, recycle any packaging they could, and then determine which donation site each package would go to.
Non-perishable, shelf-stable food and drink products go to Campus Rec’s Food Assistance & Well-Being Program.
The program, which takes place inside the ARC Instructional Kitchen during scheduled hours, provides a shopping-style food pantry and is open to current students with an active i-card. In addition to providing food, a number of other resources are available, including recipes and peer-to-peer education about how to prepare the food items available as a complete meal.
Rachel Yang, the assistant director for food security at Campus Recreation, said she was “surprised how much there [was]” in Housing’s first donation to the Food Assistance & Well-Being Program, saying they received “300 pounds-plus.”
This included a number of easy, on-the-go snacks; peanut butter; shelf-stable and non-dairy milk; health supplements; high-quality protein sources, such as whey protein powder; and “hundreds of coffee pods.”
"It’s collaboration at its highest"
Alana Harris, the associate director for assessment, student wellness and adventure recreation at Campus Recreation, said one surprising benefit of receiving the donations has been the insight gained about what food items students want and need.
“By receiving things that students have ordered, it’s telling us what they like,” Harris said. “Things we didn’t think about, we offered and saw that they went quickly, and it was like, wow, we need to seek out more opportunities to provide students with this type of resource.”
Yang said the ARC Food Assistance & Well-Being Program opens twice a week during the school year, Tuesdays from 1 – 4 p.m. and Saturdays from 2 – 5 p.m. They also recently began offering online ordering and pickup at CRCE refrigerated lockers. The current pickup schedule is every Monday and Wednesday from 4 – 6 p.m. The locker program at CRCE will be available when the ARC is closed.
Students are able to utilize the Food Assistance & Well-Being Program simply by using their student ID to enter through the turnstiles at the ARC, though students do not have to swipe again as they enter the food pantry.
When students come in, staff and volunteers help individuals create a profile on a database, which takes less than five minutes. All data is stored aggregate, and no individual data is kept, protecting each user’s identity.
Harris said this is important because there can sometimes be “stigma associated with use of a resource like this,” although she has been surprised to find that it hasn’t been an issue on this campus.
“I’m especially proud of our space … it’s peer to peer,” Harris said, “so we have students who are studying social work and in food science and human nutrition and studying pre-med who help their peers access the program, and I haven’t seen some of the things I thought I might,” as it relates to a stigma.
“It’s welcoming,” she said. “We found out through assessment students find out about it from each other, so communities that exist on our campus are telling other community members about how great the resource is, and that is the greatest marketing that we can do, is that they’re sharing with one another and supporting their peers.”
Yang said the Food Assistance & Well-Being Program generally sees 40 to 50 students per opening.
Harris said food insecurity is an issue that is “a lot more common than I think we think about.”
She said she’s excited to receive the donations of unclaimed and undeliverable packages from Housing.
“Housing had identified this need that would fill a need that we have,” Harris said. “It’s collaboration at its highest … where we all are benefitting from a resource and meeting students’ needs.”
Mattfolk said other institutions are also benefitting from University Housing’s solution to the problem of having so many unclaimed and undeliverable packages.
“We definitely kind of set the tone for a lot of other universities with how we’re handling this,” she said. “Other universities were also reaching out to us, asking us how we were doing this.”
Mattfolk said Housing had already donated more than 500 packages before the spring 2024 semester began.
“I like that we’re able to give back, especially to the university and those that are in need,” she said. “We’ve got a lot of students who really could use the items that we are able to give to the programs that are giving back to those students.”
Like Harris, Alexander is very excited about the chance to collaborate with Housing to make a positive impact on the community.
“I think it is a fantastic program,” he said, “and to be able to repurpose these things to go to students, who are the ones that initially bought them, and be able to send them back to their constituency in a community that often doesn’t have a lot of resources … to be able to take a piece of that [financial worry] off their slate is wonderful. The same thing for our immigrant community as well – people that often are struggling in different ways. … It can make an enormous difference. To be able to repurpose these [items] in that way is just wonderful, and I couldn’t be happier to do it.”
This story was originally published in Fall 2024 and shared with permission from University Housing.