What NOT to Donate

I was working at the food pantry tonight, sorting clothes, and thinking about a blog post...

Because, really, we don't want your junk. There are some places that can use stained and torn t-shirts, your local food pantry probably isn't one, even if they do give out clothes.

Just because people are poor doesn't mean they want to wear rags! And in America, there is no need for them to. There are enough great clothes, relatively stylish, clean, and in good shape that there is NEVER a time for wearing trash.

A lot of what we get in is trash. Last weekend we picked up leftovers from two yard sales. Bless their hearts, the little old ladies who donated the stuff were so sweet, thinking they had special things that were useable, but this weekend I'm working my butt off to get the few good things out of all the trash.

Seriously, we got two boxes just like these full of clothes, and one that was as deep, but rectangular. I kept four banana boxes of summer clothes, and two trash bags of winter clothes. Everything else has to be bagged and carried off.

Speaking of winter clothes....

Don't donate winter clothes in summer or summer clothes in winter unless you know for sure the place you're donating to has lots of storage space.

Space at the food pantry is at such a premium that unless it's something new with tags, or in pristine condition, I don't keep it. It would be lots better for you to keep a couple bags in your garage until the weather changes than for me to have to send it somewhere else. We simply don't have the space to store lots of out of season things.

There were scary-dirty clothes....looked like someone had picked them up off the bedroom floor and instead of doing laundry, donated it. Underwear, too. Ick. No, thank you, I don't want to sort that bag. Dirty clothes, clothes that smell like mothballs or cigarette smoke....do me a favor and go ahead and throw it in the garbage. I guarantee that's where it will end up.

Your grandmother may have been the sweetest lady in the world....I still can't use her polyester dresses from the '70's. Or your grandfather's suits. If it's older than my kids, it's automatically going in the *out* pile.

And shoes. Five inch heels are fine and all that, but no one ever takes them. I'll just cart them off later, too. Shoes you wore in grade school......no, they haven't come back in style. Shoes your kid wore twice and outgrew, yes, we'd love them.

It's really quite easy - if it's something you'd wear, but it's too small or the wrong colour or something , go ahead and send it in. If it's been in your closet since you were in high school, put it out of it's misery. Please. For the sake of us all.