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November 25, 2004 ~ What If...
Thursday.
I recently joined the Asheville Freecycle mailing list. Freecycle is a movement across the world where people post to a local mailing list their things that they don't need any more, so that people who do need them can reply and, if they're lucky, arrange to pick them up for free.
I've seen all sorts of things given away through the local list that I am on. Sometimes it's very small offers, "Hey, I've got a half a pint of paint left over from a project I was doing, anybody want it?" Lots of old clothes, used dishes, books, other yard sale type items. But other times it's pretty incredible what people are giving away. I usually see at least five working washer and dryer sets change hands every month, several computers ("slightly out of date, but it works!"), lumber, power tools, furniture. This month, a 1989 (if I remember right) car "works great except the coolant system needs new rubber hoses--it sat a while." I was especially surprised when an entire house came up. Seriously. A mobile home. It was in good shape except one bedroom needs new carpeting, there's a hole in one wall, and a wee one wrote on one of the walls with a washable marker. The person giving it away said that it couldn't stay on the land it was on, and there was actually a lot of trouble giving it away because nobody was up to arranging the big-wheeler to tow it off to a new location. I had to chuckle at that. I mean, how often do you see, "Free house, please come and get it!"?
I instantly loved Freecycle, because it worked on a principle I'd tried to live by for years, but offered networking and immediate connections. Morgan and I hate to just throw away perfectly usable stuff, so we've always tried to give away what we can. Just this last year we've given to friends two of our old rebuilt computers, and we're in the process of giving away one of our cars. But for the things that we don't already see a need for somewhere, Freecycle will help us find needful homes.
A few days ago I spoke with a woman on the list who just moved into her new house. She offered up all of her moving boxes to the list, and Morgan and I are going to pick them up after Thanksgiving. As we pack up our current house over the next few weeks, I'm sure we're going to find a bunch of stuff that we don't need anymore to post for free on the list. Freecycle karma. You get and you give.
Sometimes the things exchanged on the list can mean the world to the people who receive them. Clothes and furniture and appliances to a woman attempting to move out of a battered women's shelter with her little kids. A wheelchair to a disabled woman. Winter clothes to a homeless shelter. A bunk bed to two kids sleeping on the floor. An air purifier to a woman whose son suffers from severe asthma. A computer to a poor college student. A few minutes of reading my email from that list will sometimes find a lump in my throat. Nothing better to restore one's faith in humanity than witnessing complete strangers trying to help one another.
A few days ago, the following message came through to the list. I hope the poster will forgive me for copying his words here, but they captured both the spirit of Freecycle and the spirit of Thanksgiving all in one swoop:
looking for a elderly couple or single person who has no immediate family to spend Thanksgiving with. We always have more than we can use and our family has dwindled down with marriages and moving and have a couple of seats at our table we would love to share with someone who has no family to be with.
What if we all worked a little harder to live by the spirit of Freecycling? What if we all tried our best to pass on our extras and excesses and our no-longer-neededs to someone who needs them more? What if we took a little extra time to find out if what we have that can be shared, rather than just throwing it away? What if we reused all of the old stuff instead of making so much new stuff? But most of all, what if we noticed the extra spaces at our tables, and offered them up to the lonely or hungry? What if we reached out with kindness to the strangers around us, rather than closing ourselves off? What if we changed the world, one life at a time, with a simple offer like, "We have an extra place at our table, if you'd like to join us?"
May you have family and friends around you, but if you don't, Morgan and I usually have an extra place at our table, if you'd like to join us.
This entry was written on the WordGoddess collaboration prompt: "What if?"
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