Local Athlete Wants Your Old T-Shirts For West Coast College Contest

Got old T-shirts?

Call Anthony Villa -- he'll take them for a worthy cause.

Villa of Danville is spending his three-week college break collecting as many T-shirts as possible for St. Mary's College entry in a West Coast Conference charity contest.

The WCC is sponsoring its second T-shirt charity drive, a contest to collect the most shirts among its nine affiliated West Coast universities. The shirts will be donated to Clothes4Souls.

Last year, more than 26,800 shirts were collected from the WCC schools and given to the worldwide charity, an offshoot of not-for-profit Sole4Souls.

This year's drive organizers are hoping to surpass that amount.

A San Ramon Valley High School 2012 graduate, Villa is a St. Mary's freshman, baseball player and on the university's Student-Athlete Advisory Committee -- the collegiate group running the donation campaign.

Cash prizes -- $1,000 for first place, $500 for second and $300 for third -- will be awarded by WCC to the top three colleges for T-shirt collections, per capita, to be used as donations to local or national charities, said Villa, a liaison for St. Mary's efforts.

SAAC members are also placing collection boxes at basketball arenas and in locations on their respective campuses.

The university winners will be announced at the WCC's March basketball tournament in Las Vegas, Villa said. 

Donated shirts can be of any size, for any gender, and either new or in gently used, "wearable" condition.

To contact Villa and arrange a T-shirt pickup, email him at anthonyvilla7@hotmail.com.

For further information on the Clothes4Souls and Soles4Souls charities, visit www.clothes4souls.org and www.soles4souls.org.