The SAVE Club Trashion show is an annual event held during Earth Week. This year on April 24th in the Hellgate Upper Gym, students got the chance to show off their creativity featuring outfits made entirely of recycled materials. According to board member Genevieve Hedstrom, the goal of this event is “to blend fashion and environmental activism to promote sustainability and make students more mindful of their waste”.
The Trashion Show is hosted by Hellgate High School’s SAVE Club which handles Hellgate’s recycling and manages the school’s greenhouse. “SAVE also looks to improve awareness of and participation in environmental causes in the school and the community,” said Eric Ojala, SAVE’s supervisor.
This event is open to all students of Hellgate to present their unique designs made entirely of recycled materials including cloth, paper, plastic, and metal. Models display student made designs down a runway which are then judged by volunteer teachers on creativity, practicality, cohesion of items, and model performance. The top scoring designers are then awarded prizes donated by local Missoula businesses.
The SAVE Club board consists of seven SAVE members; Genevieve Hedstrom, Chloe Groves, Sasha Cowie, Maria Saenz, Lucia Cherubini, Robbie Gibbons, and Ellette Whitcomb. When it came to putting on the Trashion Show, “it was a definite group effort,” Groves said. All board members helped to ensure that the show was possible and “we utilized our individual strengths to do so”.
The Trashion Show benefits and spreads awareness of the environment in many ways. “Rather than letting something go to the landfill, they [students] start thinking of how they can incorporate it into their outfit, imagining the different uses the item can have around their house without having to throw it away, ultimately being part of the goal of bettering the environment,” said Saenz.
According to Groves, “it helps to bring awareness to the fast fashion industry and shows how people can be creatively involved in the effort of helping our environment.”
Earth week leading up to the Trashion Show was full of a variety of projects and events. According to Hedstrom, April 18th was SAVE’s monthly groundwater measurements event in Greenough Park. Their partnership with Watershed Education Network (WEN) gave them the opportunity to help out with community science, using the student’s findings for different studies and research projects around the state.
SAVE also partnered with the Hellgate Key Club for the Clark Fork River Bank Cleanup which occurred the morning of April 18th. Volunteers helped clean up the Clark Fork River by removing trash and recyclable materials.
Throughout Earth Week SAVE brought in presenters to Hellgate to educate students on environmental topics. Presenters included Pesticide Free Missoula, Home Resource, and Watershed Education Network.
The entire week and Trashion Show event would not have been possible without the amazing SAVE Club member’s organization and commitment to bettering the planet. The week’s events successfully highlighted the importance of environmental protection and community awareness in an engaging and creative way.
