A one-day “thrift shopping” event, organized by the Gender Identity Alliance (GIA), the Queer Trans People of Color Coalition and The Pride Network, took place on Monday, Nov. 11, in the Student Center. The event aimed to raise money for the student organizations hosting the event.

“Queer kids don’t have enough clothes,” said Riley Lisa, a senior psychology major who organized the event and expressed concern about queer students’ access to affordable clothing.

Lisa and the other organizers focused on making the event as LGBTQ friendly as possible, so clothes were not gendered in any way. “When you go shopping and it’s men’s and women’s sections, that’s pretty disheartening for trans kids,” Lisa said. “We don’t have that here, it’s just all out.”

 “I saw the event on [GIA’s] Instagram and was very interested,” said Arielle Ruiz, a sophomore Spanish and journalism double major. “I’m not usually able to [go] to their meetings, so I try to [go] to as many events as I can.”

“Having this opportunity to be able to meet other people that are part of organizations that we typically wouldn’t have access to is definitely really important,” Ruiz said.

All of the clothes being sold were donated by people in the Hofstra community and collected over the course of a few weeks. “Getting the clothes and washing them all was a lot,” Lisa said. “We had to do that a week in advance. It wasn’t really that hard, we just advertised it and it happened.”

 “Most clothing stores, like in malls, don’t have clothes that fit for anyone outside of a gender binary, so mostly people have to go to thrift stores or places like this,” said Josh Castronuovo, a junior public relations major and president of The Pride Network. “I think it’s good that a place like this is coming to Hofstra because a lot of people who fall under those categories don’t have the accessibility to make it to any thrift stores.”