Students and community members have the opportunity to donate new or gently used clothes, shoes and accessories to The Trans*Formation Station from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Thursday at the Cultural Center at 1525 7th Street, across from Old Main.

The Trans*Formation Station is an important part of meeting the needs of the growing population of transgender and gender non-binary students at Eastern, according to the press release.

Students in need of clothing can pick out clothing from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. in the Cultural Center on Friday.

Eastern’s Center for Gender & Sexual Diversity is creating a closet where students can shop for needed clothing free of cost.

Jessica Ward, the coordinator for the center, said the station is mostly for trans students but anybody who is in the GSD community can come shopping for needed items.

“If you aren’t comfortable going into a store that sells clothes because you don’t look the way you think you should — that can be a very stressful experience,” she said. “We wanted to have a safe and inclusive environment where our students can kind of get a start and go from there.”

Other items that can be donated are new makeup, feminine hygiene products, ties, bowties and other items needed by both genders.

“Essentially they kind of need everything (for donations)…I know we have people who will be donating wigs and all kind of stuff,” Ward said.

Ward said next year the center will have a health and wellness area, because if trans men have not started hormones they will still have periods and they would like to have supplies for the students to avoid having to face any sort of embarrassment of buying tampons or pads as a man.

Ward said she has not seen ideas like the Trans*Formation Station present on other campuses and she has not found another campus that has one.

She said she was trying to be inventive and proposed the idea for the Trans*Formation Station to the committee a couple weeks ago to make one of the rooms a closet for donations.

Ward said the center has outgrown its space and will be moving to the basement of Stevenson Hall this summer, which is larger and handicap accessible.

Liz Stephens can be contacted at 581-2812 or ejstephens2@eiu.edu.