The Great Donate- Chugging Along Too Slowly

by - Thursday, September 07, 2017


Ok, we had another blast of gifting this week, and we have a big donate to Goodwill coming this month, so where are we at...

878.

Ok, I know I keep saying we are basically moving way slower than I expected (we are), but can I say I am still pretty proud of that number? Almost 900 things given away is no joke. Also, I notice that our house really does have less of those piles of stuff that really don't belong anywhere (and yet we have them).

I think what I have learned (more so than ever) is that doing the right thing is a slow process. Yes, I could just drop everything off at Goodwill, but I know some of what we have gifted would have been thrown away. We still use it for clothes, but I am glad that we are mostly handing things off through Buy Nothing. I have made friends and had really wonderful conversations with my neighbors while handing things off.

Giving things away and donating them are great. But in the face of this last month, where we are seeing terrible disasters caused by Climate Change, I know that just donating things is not enough. The best thing any and all of us can do is to buy way less. Our extreme consumer culture- the long shipping distances, the plastic packaging, etc.- fuels climate change and sends companies the message that we don't care, so they can act however they want.

So what am I learning in our year of gifting things away? Buy way less. Because honestly, we could still give away half of our wardrobes and be fine. Give away a bunch of kitchen stuff, and we would be fine. We have no shortage of stuff to give, more a shortage of time to give it all away. I hope these blogs inspire you to get stuff out of your house, but more importantly, I hope someone feels inspired to just not buy that thing. Because it won't be that great, and later you will try to get rid of it.

 So as the fall gets moving and people start thinking about Christmas, how about get less stuff, because it's more of a burden than a help. I am going to focus on buying less, and I hope you do too.


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