Freecycle! Changing the World One Gift at a Time

No news on the fitness front today other than keeping my calories a bit below normal to compensate for dinner out last night (and 2 glasses of champagne, yum!).  All is going well in diet-land and I don't have any insights or other thoughts to offer today.

So, I thought instead I'd use this time to write about one of my favorite things, Freecycle.  For the uninitiated, Freecycle is world-wide network of local groups, the members of which give and receive 'gifts' that are actually items that the owner no longer needs (or in some cases is willing to loan out for a short period).  There are groups springing up all over the world, and to find a group near you just check www.Freecycle.org.  The whole thing is done through email and Yahoo groups, and honestly couldn't be any easier to use.

The purpose of the group is to keep otherwise useful items out of landfills - from furniture to egg cartons, almost everything we touch can have a second life with someone else!  It gives me great joy to pass along something that I'm no longer using, rather than letting it clutter up my house or even worse, a garbage dump. 

Here are a few things I have successfully Freecycled (the list is much longer but these are some fun examples):

• Old umbrellas, to a high school drama club staging a production of 'Singing in the Rain'
• Several almost new bottles of expensive shampoo, conditioner, etc. that I used once and didn't like
• Sparkly silver pumps (sadly, a size too small for me)
  
• A gift certificate to a local theater that I knew I wouldn't use
• A box of 3 dozen weight loss books that I've read over the years (yes, I finally admitted that they weren't really helping me)
• Several unopened cute travel toiletry kits from British Airways - these went to a local homeless shelter!
• A couple old cell phones

Freecycle is also a great way to save money - just keep an eye on things that are posted, and you might end up finding someone that is giving away exactly what you need...like the time I lost my car phone charger and someone serendipitously offered one up a few weeks later.  And here's the best part: I had the opportunity to Freecycle the same charger to someone else just this past weekend, so it's getting yet another chance at a useful life!

I could go on and on (and I guess I have) but this is such a great grassroots movement that I thought it deserved some airtime!  Now it's up to you - what do you have in your house that you can Freecycle?