Freecycling

First off, let me just say that the whole blogging thing is not going as I had planned. I think I need to revise my own personal expectation to blogging three times a week when I do not have the kids and once or twice a week when I do. There is just too much going on. Now on to our regularly scheduled blogging, already in progress…

Freecycling…you probably have a group in your area. If you don’t, you really should start one. It is incredible to watch. The concept is all about “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure.” It is a list serve in Yahoo groups. You submit a message describing something you have that needs a new home, the moderator approves it and it is sent out to the group for someone to claim. Or you can submit a request for something from the group. Every day you get a bunch of emails from your group with offers and requests that you can sort through. You can either get them in one email at the end of the day, like a digest or one at a time as they come out. I get about 20 emails a day from the group here.

I love this so much. I cannot tell you how happy making it is. It’s true that we could easily put some of the stuff we are putting out on the curb and it would mysteriously vanish, but this is so much more satisfying. The right things into the right hands at the right time. Wow.

This Christmas we gave a bike, toys, food, kitchen supplies and clothing to a woman with two kids who had just escaped an abusive relationship. We gave items to people who had lost everything during Ike. We found a sewing machine for Haley so that she and Tina can learn to sew together. Two people found a home for their old bits of yarn in me and it has my mind swimming in ideas and possibilities. The community is really unbelievably generous too. Grant and Haley earned $50 this past summer doing a lemonade stand for Hurricane Ike victims and we have tried multiple times to give the money to some of the families on Freecycle who lost everything. Every time, they have said they were fine and there were people who needed it worse than they did. We are still looking. These people break my heart.

I have become something of an evangelist on this. I am constantly telling stories of what I have put out there to give away and what I have received. I am also constantly searching the house for more to give away. I am adding a list to the bottom of my blog of things I am freecycling. I will try to remember to keep it up to date.

Go to http://www.yahoo.com/. Click on GROUPS. Then enter the name of your city and Freecycle in the box and press SEARCH. Sign up for your local group and test drive for a while. Not only will you find it a lovely way to declutter yourself, you might make someone’s day.

XO