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<\/p>\nA buzz of excitement permeates the Clothing Swap Club room. Clothes are laid across every table, and still more are in bags and on the floor. Nearly every member holds an old article of clothing as they search for a hidden treasure to trade it for.<\/p>\n
The Clothing Swap Club was founded by Berkeley High School sophomores Ramona Cohen and Luna Jacobsen. Both were inspired by the summer they spent thrifting together.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cLuna and I thought it would be a fun idea if we got a ton of clothes that we didn\u2019t use, and then other people got their clothes that they didn\u2019t use, and we all swapped, so we didn\u2019t have to buy any new clothes,\u201d Cohen said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
At the beginning of the club there\u2019s a short presentation on the upcoming events and rules for the club. After that, students line up to check in their clothes. Each student meets with the person who\u2019s running the counter, and they count the clothes. Then, each student gets a little slip of paper for each item they brought, which they hold onto for the rest of the club session. Then at the end, when members get clothes from the pile to take home, they return the voucher as if they\u2019re checking out. \u201cYou can only take as much as you bring,\u201d Cohen said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Unsustainability and overconsumption currently plague the fashion industry, and Cohen and Jacobsen are trying to combat this on a school-wide level.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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\u201cPeople feel that they need to buy into this idea of constantly getting new clothes and new fashion. Because of that, there\u2019s a lot of clothes in landfills,\u201d Jacobsen said, \u201cWe wanted to figure out a way to recycle, so that people could get new clothes without throwing away old ones.\u201d Even clothes that are donated to places like Goodwill and other thrift stores often end up in the landfill anyway, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re trying to keep things circulating without throwing anything away,\u201d Jacobsen said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
On Friday, Oct. 9, 2026, the Clothing Swap Club was packed to the brim with students looking for new clothes. Emiko Critchlow, a freshman at BHS, had been to the club once before already.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI really like this club because it\u2019s basically just thrifting but free, which is really nice,\u201d Crichlow said, \u201cI think I\u2019ll probably be a part of this club for as long as it lasts, and I\u2019m hoping that it still exists after I graduate.\u201d While Crichlow greatly enjoys the club, one difficulty she\u2019s had is getting the clothes she wants out of the swap, because often they\u2019re taken before she can reach them. \u201cIt\u2019s almost (a) free-for-all,\u201d Crichlow said, \u201cBut, you know, that\u2019s what makes it fun.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Anyone can attend a clothing swap, but they are only allowed to take as many items as they bring.\n <\/p>\n
One challenge that Jacobsen observed from the first clothing swap meeting was the lack of clothes that other people brought. \u201cWe were the main clothing suppliers of the meeting, so we had a lack of clothes being presented. Most of the clothes up for swapping were just out of our closets,\u201d Jacobsen said. But the more recent club meetings have shown a massive improvement, with many people reporting plans to return.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThis club is really fun, and I love clothes and the great community, so I will definitely be coming back,\u201d Eliza Park, a BHS freshman and another member of the club, said. Cohen agrees that the Clothing Swap Club has created a special community. \u201cA couple days after our first meeting, we would notice people wearing stuff that we brought or that our friends brought. It was a community building thing, \u2018cause I would be like, \u2018oh, like, that\u2019s my shirt that you\u2019re wearing!\u2019 It brings people together,\u201d Cohen said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A buzz of excitement permeates the Clothing Swap Club room. Clothes are laid across every table, and still…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":506988,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[143,145,144],"class_list":["post-506987","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506987","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=506987"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506987\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/506988"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=506987"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=506987"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=506987"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}