Have you thought about using a Red Cross pickup program to clear goods out of your home? You might be thinking, “I’ve never even heard of a Red Cross pickup program… I thought Red Cross was for donating blood.” While its true, the Red Cross is an organization that meets human needs all over the world, which includes using blood donations, it also uses household goods and clothing donations to complete its mission. The value of using a Red Cross pickup service is that you can contribute to the mission of the Red Cross without even leaving the comfort of your home.
But this isn’t a paid advertisement for Red Cross pickup services, we want you to make your used clothing donations to any cause that you feel passionate about. The fact is, when you make clothes donations to any good cause, it isn’t just that one cause that benefits. Your donated goods begins a ripple effect that spreads good further than you’d ever guess. Let’s think about it:
Three Levels of Good That Comes With a Single Donation to Charity
- First Level: You help yourself when you donate clothing to charity.
When you donate to charity, you do a good deed. When you do good, it makes you feel good. Maybe you had a meh day, and you feel meh about life. Then you give a bunch of stuff that is just collecting dust around your house to a good cause, and those goods are used to do good, and that makes you feel good. Your unneeded clothing and household items weren’t doing you any good around your home, but when you give them to a good cause, they give you a pop of energy. It changes your outlook on life and gives you a greater sense of satisfaction in life.
On top of that, when you clear junk and clutter you don’t need around your house out, it makes your home easier to clean. A clean home is a happy home. Your home is clear and that makes your mind clear too. - Second Level: You help the people who are helped by the cause when you donate goods to charity.
This might be the most obvious connection, but when you donate to a good cause, you’re furthering that good cause. Our example at the beginning of this post was the Red Cross, of course, but any cause that is meaningful to you is a great way to get the most good out of your donation. There are causes that support veterans. There are causes that support stray puppies. There are causes that support puppies of veterans. It’s a great idea to look for a cause that you feel good about, as it makes you feel the best about your donation. - Third Level: The planet is helped when you donate goods to charity.
The wastefulness of Americans is a sad problem that we have. Everything is disposable. When we’re done using an item, we throw it away and it spends the rest of eternity in a landfill — basically a giant hole that we throw trash in until it over flows and we cover it up and start a new trash hole somewhere else.
When you donate your unneeded items to charity instead of throwing it in the trash, your unused goods get double the life. Now, the things that you were going to throw in the trash are saved from the trash hole. On top of that, the people who make use of your used goods don’t have to go buy a brand new item. The pollution and energy that is wasted remaking that item that shouldn’t have been thrown in the trash to begin with are saved. The packaging on the item that doesn’t have to be reproduced because your donated good is being used twice doesn’t end up in a landfill, because it’s never made to begin with.
If everyone donated their unneeded household goods and clothing to charity rather than throwing it away, landfills would be saved millions of pounds of trash. We didn’t crunch the numbers, but the energy savings would be enormous. Mother Nature smiles when you donate goods to charity.
We hope that you see where we’re coming from and donate your goods to charity!
