Outdoor Gear Exchange Launches First Round of Funding for The OGE Charitable Grant Fund

Burlington — Outdoor Gear Exchange (OGE) in Burlington is accepting its first round of applications for its fledgling grant fund. The OGE Charitable Grant Fund was started on October 30 as a way to better connect OGE and its consignment customers and consignees to Vermont’s outdoor community. Consigners of gear or clothing at OGE are given the opportunity to donate up to 100 percent of their share of their consignment payout when they drop off gear and when the gear is purchased that portion of the consignees payout is automatically kept in a fund that is administrated by OGE. Applicants must be a non-profit organization looking for funding for tangible assets needed for conservation or access work in Vermont.  Twice annually OGE will request application to distribute the collected funds in the form of grants.

The amount and number of grants given in each round of funding will be determined by the amount of money collected in the six months leading up to the grant date.  For this round of funding OGE will be giving two grants of $1,500 from with an additional OGE funded grant of $1,000. 

“We’re excited about this opportunity to support the community that supports us,” commented OGE Founder, Marc Sherman. “For years we’ve been supporting local non-profits through our Nickel Bag program. Since that program began in 2007 we have donated almost $11,000 by setting aside a nickel each time a customer opts out of using a bag. We also estimate that this has kept upwards of a quarter million bags out of our landfills! Typically we donate $150-200 per month to the selected recipient. We expect this new program to quickly grow to the point where we are granting that much money every six months as well allow us to help fund larger projects than these smaller monthly donations would allow,” continued Sherman.

“We are committed to the environment, as we believe are our customers” added co-owner Mike Donohue “and we feel this is another way that we can connect our customers to our greater community and what the OGE is all about.”

Prospective grantees can find the online application at gearX.com/about/consignment.