Local photographer launches fundraising for documenting “your Goodwill”.

Have you ever wondered what happens to all the items you donate to non-profits? Your clothes, toys, and blankets disappear, magically transported somewhere out of sight and out of mind.

Freelance photographer and St. Louis native, Wesley Law wanted to know more about their journey and headed to the MERS Goodwill Outlet on Market Street to investigate. He found hundreds of thousands of square feet of unwanted donated items that have been crushed into bales to be shipped for either recycling or reuse.

Instead of photographing the bales together in the warehouse as landscapes, he found each one to have, “their own personality, their own identity.” He continues, “I think when people look at what’s embedded in these things, it evokes our past and our memories.”

Asking for your support.

Having reached the limit of his self-financing, Wesley has created a Kickstarter Fundraiser in order to fund the completion of the project with plans for the series to be experienced as large scale prints in galleries. The next phase of the project (if the goal for funding is reached) is to take more photographs of the bales along the way to their final resting places. He’s heard they get shipped to both Los Angeles and Texas with a majority of them ending up in recycling facilities in Asia.

To see more images, find out more about the project, and donate to his fundraiser, follow this link:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1203575416/baled-americas-recyclables

Donate by 4pm on Friday, December 14th to support this project.

 

Post Script

1. Wesley’s project was profiled on NPR last week; you can read about it on their website – “Are You Done With That? Photographing The Results Of Your Good Will”.

2. Local Remains, Inc: Textile Recycling/Vintage Wholesale shared with us this infographic about donated textiles in the U.S. from The Education Center: http://www.theeducationcenter.com/Images/projects/2012/SO/SMART-Infographic.pdf