- Hoofer’s sail bag at WRN
For the sailing club at the University of Wisconsin, what to do with used sails is in the bag. Tom Barry, Head of Instruction for the Hoofer Sailing Club, says with 100 boats and 1200 members, they go through a lot of sails each year. “There were so many used sails piling up, and they’re somewhat unwieldy. The thought of putting them in a dumpster just didn’t sit with me.” Then students in the Design Studies Department in the School of Human Ecology came up with a solution: tote bags. After an initial series of student produced bags, there’s now a business partner. “The linchpin to success for this project is a company up in Oshkosh called Green 3 Apparel,” explains Barry. “They’re a cut and sew manufacturing facility and they’re really innovative. They take what we gave them, and figured out the fasted and most economical way to manufacture these.” The bags cost $25, with all the money going directly to the Hoofer Youth Sailing program scholarship program.