You'll like this, Dana

..."The Freecycle Network™ is made up of 4,614 groups with 5,910,000 members across the globe. It's a grassroots and entirely nonprofit movement of people who are giving (& getting) stuff for free in their own towns. It's all about reuse and keeping good stuff out of landfills. Each local group is moderated by a local volunteer (them's good people). Membership is free."
-Freecycle website

"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."
-Freecycly Mission Statement


Okay... if you like free stuff, if you're a pack rat,or if you just like to "put stuff by the road b/c it's easier"... this is for you. About a year ago, my friend and fellow bargain lover, Tammy, told me about Freecycle. I'll have to admit that I was a little skeptical at first... so I just joined and watched. But this really is the neatest thing.

As you can imagine, while I was not in Albany I accumulated lots of stuff, and George did as well. Now with the two of us trying to get the house back in order, there are definitely some things that we need to get rid of (I am not a stuff-keeper anyway.). In Freecycle, all you do is go to your group website and post what you need to get rid of... it is then approved by your group moderator and posted via e-mail to everyone in your group. The beauty of this is --that is all you do. After that, you will begin to get e-mails from people that are interested in your "junk". You can meet them somewhere to give it to them, or they can come pick it up, etc. ALSO... you get to see what everyone else posts, and when you see something that you are interested in, claim it... well, you get the point. ALSO... you can post things that you want and if someone in the group has it, then you can get it. It's a beautiful thing. Today I got rid of a white toybox and a bookshelf cabinet. It was neat b/c I gave it to a young couple with a little boy-- i just furnished their playroom, and they cleaned out my foyer! FOR FREE.

The concept is great. We all have things sitting in our house that we don't need/want/use. Eventually we will dispose of it somehow, some of us put it by the road.... where it then goes to the dump. This whole program is designed to keep useable things out of landfills, thus helping our environment. ---and your wallet at the same time.

You can see if there is a Freecycle in your area here: Freecycle