Have you heard about Freecycle? It is amazing what you can find! Freecycle.org is a free community set up to gift unwanted but still useful items to people who need them and can find a use for these otherwise 'destined for the dump' items.
Freecycle's mission statement: "Our mission is to build a worldwide gifting movement that reduces waste, saves precious resources & eases the burden on our landfills while enabling our members to benefit from the strength of a larger community."
I have received gift boxes I will use to wrap Christmas presents and 2 bicycles. The bikes need new chains and new seats (one could use a paint job as well), but it will be a fun project for the man to do on the weekend while I supervise and then the bikes will be fully operational and I can get some exercise!
I have freecycled some clothes, a pair of shoes I never wear, posters I was going to throw away and i have a pile in my dining room ready to post. The process is simple. You find a freecycle area near you through the website, sign up and then post like you are writing an e-mail and it gets sent out to everyone signed up in your area. People can receive an e-mail on each offer or just go to their homepage and see what has been posted.
There are three types of posts: offer, wanted and received. Offers are usually the bulk of the e-mails and if someone is interested they e-mail just the person with the offer back and figure out pick-up terms. If someone is in need of a specific item they may post a wanted and explain what they want and why they need it. When you receive an item, it is encouraging to put a received so others can see Freecycle in action.
I have only had one negative experience with Freecycle and it may still turn out fine. Someone posted wanting a dress for her daughter to attend a school dance. I asked her if she wanted to keep the dress or borrow it, because I have many dresses and some I will give away but others I do want to keep. The person said borrowing would be fine, so I picked out ten dresses for her daughter to try on and dropped them off to her, where she told me she would return them the next day minus the one her daughter picked (I wasn't sure which size would work best). It has been a few days and I have not heard from her, but I understand things come up and maybe she hasn't had time to return them yet...
So keep in mind Freecycle is at your own risk, but it can be very beneficial to everyone involved. It feels great to be able to give someone in need something and it is fun to receive sometimes too! So check it out, just be careful about giving out personal information to people! It is a great way of getting rid of some 'junk' that may be treasure to someone else in your community.
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