So this week Joyce and I tried to do a clothing swap between our church and the preschool that shares contiguous space. I think it could eventually turn into a local charity clothing drive/swap combo thing, which we do maybe twice a year. I know that I put in 30 pieces, and really only took 2 out, maybe more. I've currently got the extras in the trunk of my car on their way to storage or goodwill. We had a lot left over that no one claimed today.
When it was in the planning stages, I did a little leg work, and there are so many ways you can do a swap. You can dump all the clothing in between you and grab, you can hand out tickets and trade them in for all the pieces you put in. This was something in between. People could browse over a couple of days and were on the honor system. It felt a bit like a silent auction. There was a room where no one was but things happened to the clothing on the tables when no one was looking. For me, the idea came from the annual clothing sale that a local school use to do in Pittsburgh. We just didn't want to get into that whole money thing if we could help it.
Most people's reaction to it when I suggest it was "that's a great idea, I don't need anything." It was a bit last minute and all, but we had a batch of clothing show up that I didn't bring and I got a nice sweater and shirt for tobo out of it. If tobo was a 1yr old girl, I'd have a lot more options.
2 comments:
I recently heard of doing this with toys as well--we all have so much plastic crap the kids don't play with anymore, why not make it each other's Christmas presents?!
I recently scored some goodies from someone at church getting rid of a bag, and I just sorted out some stuff, so I am sure our church could come up with a LOT of clothes if someone organized it.
Really you just need to:
a) pick a day
b) get a room reserved where everyone has access
c) advertise
d) set up tables and
e) label them with sizes/types
The rest does takes care of itself.
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