The new forums will be named Coin Return (based on the most recent vote)! You can check on the status and timeline of the transition to the new forums here.
The Guiding Principles and New Rules document is now in effect.
Clothing donation help
DouglasDanger
PennsylvaniaRegistered User regular
PennsylvaniaRegistered User regular
Does anyone else donate their old or unwanted clothes? Where do you donate?
I'm running into a bit of a problem.
The Salvation Army is the dominant local charity, and they are a Christian cult and they're homophobic.
The Goodwill exploits disabled workers and pays them less than minimum wage.
There's a big Methodist Church down the road, but they're also problematic with their homophobia.
The US Again donation boxes are everywhere, but they're linked to a cult and money laundering. And they're for profit!
https://www.tvindalert.com/usagain-denied-a-licence-in-us-city-after-giving-false-information/
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-05-14/news/ct-met-tvind-gaia-update-20110514_1_planet-aid-tvind-gaia
What am I supposed to do with these clothes? I live in a rural area in Pennsylvania, I don't know of a homeless shelter close by...
I'm running into a bit of a problem.
The Salvation Army is the dominant local charity, and they are a Christian cult and they're homophobic.
The Goodwill exploits disabled workers and pays them less than minimum wage.
There's a big Methodist Church down the road, but they're also problematic with their homophobia.
The US Again donation boxes are everywhere, but they're linked to a cult and money laundering. And they're for profit!
https://www.tvindalert.com/usagain-denied-a-licence-in-us-city-after-giving-false-information/
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-05-14/news/ct-met-tvind-gaia-update-20110514_1_planet-aid-tvind-gaia
What am I supposed to do with these clothes? I live in a rural area in Pennsylvania, I don't know of a homeless shelter close by...
DouglasDanger on
0
Posts
The term you are looking for is thrift store.
They're bad.
Check to see if there are any AMVETS stores in any kind of reasonable distance. They do pick-ups as well as accepting drop-offs, but obviously not if you're too far from one of their thrift stores.
Hey, this might be a good option, there's one half an hour away.
They do. And they have drop boxes in my area both in front of their building and around town. Not sure how widespread the dropbox thing is though
Some of it is old socks and under shirts, and I had really hoped to actually recycle it, but now I don't know what to do
After the Bastrop fires we eventually organized a thing with the local food pantry where they gave out vouchers, and people just came and took whatever they wanted, and we still had an entire half a semi full of clothing after that.
Even places that say they'll happily take donations soemtimes end up throwing away much of what they get - they just don't want to discourage generosity by saying "oh, thanks but your shirts are mostly trash and we have a thousand already, can you please just donate money so we can buy people the stuff they actually need?"
But they're mostly trash. Perhaps you can give them away on craigslist? Find consignment shop?
You can also upcycle - cut up shirts to make other things like bags. Bags are always useful. Always. Somebody can always use a bag. Pantries and people who use them need bags for food, and having something reusable for those who want it helps cut back on trash. People without homes need containment. People with children need to keep track of all kinds of little crap that kids need. It's work, but if you don't have anywhere satisfactory that will take your clothing and you have some time for really small projects, it might be worthwhile to consider stuff like that.
Try the other places first, especially AMVETS (though in my experience they won't take clothes), but if it comes down to trash or Goodwill, go with Goodwill. At least some good will likely come out of it.
If you grill a lot or have a fireplace, they can make excellent firestarters or char cloth for fire tinder with a little prep.
If they're not full of holes and such, some churches have drop offs for the homeless too where you can just leave them bundled and clean and people without homes can come up and just get what they need. We had a church downtown that did this and there wasn't any Christian meddling with it. Just help for people that needed help.
Going the "wash rag" route, you seem like you've got a good spirit, so look into habitat for humanity or something of that nature and turn the shirts into sweat rags and the socks into wipe rags and donate them or use them on the job when you volunteer.
I'd vote for the Methodist church. Your local church may be homophobic, but the denomination as a whole isn't - my local Methodist church flies the rainbow flag...
I would rather not compromise my morals
I mean, I have opinions about the fetishising of the military in the US, but very few organizations even pretend to do anything for veterans unless they're making money off of them, so