Saturday, June 04, 2005

Time out from Screensavers for "FreeCycle"

So what is a FreeCycle??? It is a great website I recently discovered through my daughter. She saw it mentioned on the news. Apparently it started out in the mid-west, but the part that is important to me is the towns nearby, and MY OWN TOWN are involved.
http://www.freecycle.org is the starting point. Then you pick your state, and then the towns closest to you. If you are fortunate, it includes the town you live in. It involves giving away all the things you don't want or need around your house and yard to folks who would love to use it. It is a dump recycle that is nationwide!!!
We are trying to prepare out house to sell it and that involves lots of 'stuff' that we don't want to haul to the new house. Freecycle was an answer to our prayers. People can still use lots of that 'stuff' and are willing to come to our home and pick it up because it is FREE.
It is easier than a tag sale (dragging all the stuff to the yard and tagging all of it with low prices and dragging much of it back in after the sale)or selling it on Ebay. Many of the items are not worth the effort of setting up a sale on Ebay. It is great for more valuable items, but not for the little stuff that is still useable but no big deal price-wise.
My sister got a HUGE amount of clothing in a very large size from a lady who had been ill and lost weight. Some of the items still had price tags attached. I got a laser printer for myself, and a Cannon printer for my sister. I got a beautiful gas stove for a couple in desparate need.
And I gave away hundreds of daffodil bulbs to very happy folks from all over, and old computer programs and games to folks who still had older computers. And then I gave books away to a library member in a nearby town for their fundraisers, and magazines to folks who were still doing decorative painting, and crochet/knitting, etc. Then of course there was all the crochet threads I had inherited from my husband's aunt. Wow, were those ladies happy with all that old thread!!
If you can't tell yet, I LOVE the idea of freecycle. I'm an enthusiastic participant, and invite all who are reading this to go, go, go to the site and get started freecycling!!!!!!!