It’s that time of year again when students are moving out of their apartments and houses.

All of the belongings they no longer have a use for are thrown into dumpsters around town and other students are eager to find hidden treasures. This is what students call “Hippie Christmas.”

At the end of the semester, students are packing up their belongings and getting ready to either move back home for the summer, graduate and move away completely or just move to a new location in town.

Many students have no need for some of the items they currently own and are just throwing them away. There are other students who are looking for something free and those who just happen upon these thrown out items.

“This one time at the end of dead week when I still lived in the dorms, we were partying and on our walk back I saw ing board in a dumpster on campus. So, I needed an ironing board anyways and this one was like brand new so I took it and brought it back with me,” said second-year communications major Alana Giesen.

Giesen is one of the students that just happened to stumble upon something that was useful. But then there are other students who have been looking for a specific item for a long time and finally found it residing in a dumpster.

Katherine Porter, a second-year liberal studies major, said she and her roommates had been looking for a new couch for at least two months before they found theirs in the dumpster behind their apartment.

“Me and my roommates decided to convert our dining nook into a mini TV room and we needed a couch. We went to like four thrift stores for about two months and couldn’t find anything. Then one day I saw our neighbors tossing their old furniture into the dumpster and I saw this couch. So, I grabbed one of my roommates and we pulled it out of the dumpster and it was cooler looking that I thought it was going to be,” Porter said.

All year long students throw away items they don’t need anymore, but the end of the semester, during the “Hippie Christmas” season, seems to be when the most valuable or necessary items are being tossed away for others to find.

Victoria Rohrer can be reached at [email protected] or @theorion_news on Twitter.