Don't Stop Giving

We’ve been working on a few projects to assist people and organizations in need.  As part of this, I launched a plan to purchase items from our Used sites and donate them to various charities.  I was not expecting the response I got from agencies who heard what I was doing and called me up with requests for donations.  And I was certainly not expecting the level of need – everything from furniture to dish towels.  Several of the people I spoke to were volunteers – giving their time for a cause they believe in.  That’s inspiring.  Lots of us can write a cheque, but to give time is very special and I pledge to  give more from now on.

One thing that I kept thinking about is how hard it must be for those who work and volunteer for these organizations to see this need on a daily basis and have to accept it.  I guess no one really accepts it, but it’s hard to imagine what seeing the affects of hardship is like close up, let alone being in that position yourself. 

I had the privilege of delivering armfuls of wishlist items to a transition house.  My daughters came with me and upon leaving, I was left with the duty of explaining why transition houses are needed.  How do you explain to a 7 and 10 year-old in their language about abuse and suffering when they’ve never had reason to consider that it exists?  How do you answer a question like “But why would a dad hurt his wife or his children?”  As I explained why sometimes moms and kids need to leave their homes because they’re not safe there, my older daughter was very serious and empathetic.  My youngest piped up from the back seat that she’d “just kick him in the balls”.  I don’t mean to make light of this subject, but it was a moment of levity that we all needed during a very difficult conversation.

I’d also like to mention the kind and generous people that I met during this project that either donated their items to me or threw in some extras.  It was much appreciated and it once again reinforced my belief and faith in my community.

We hope to continue to give back to our communities by helping you donate to people in need and encourage sellers to do the same.  What about posting wishlists for registered charities and non-profits similar to the ‘seller’s lists’ so that people can check out what might be needed by members of their communities and connect through our sites?  Maybe you have some ideas – so please comment on this post if you do.

One last thing.  Just about every charity I spoke to said the same thing…”We get lots of donations at Christmas, but it’s the rest of the year that we struggle”.  So keep that in mind if you have things in your closets and garage that are collecting dust and can be used by someone else.  There are families in need all year long so let’s work together to help them out.

 

Resolutions 2011

Happy 2011! You know what that means… It’s resolution time.

As the two newest members of the UsedEverywhere Team, we thought the best way to introduce ourselves would be through sharing our New Year’s Resolutions! Obviously we share the same goal of winning your hearts as the new Social Media and Community Coordinators, but what about our personal goals for 2011?

Hey there, it’s Eden!

My first resolution is to get back in game shape (no eye rolling!). I’m fresh off of a four month exchange in France, where I consumed more cheese, wine, and pastries than I’d really care to admit. I’m not interested in losing any weight, but I’d love to be back in good enough shape so that I don’t have a heart attack or toss my cookies as soon as I step on the soccer field with my intramural team.

Second resolution will be to (finally!) get my driver’s license… Well, my N (the stepping stone between a learner’s license and a full license in British Columbia). I’ve passed the written learner’s test an impressive three times, so a little basic math will tell you I’m far too old to be rocking the learner’s L on the back of my parents’ car.

Last but not least, I plan to read more books. It seems that at then end of every summer/winter holiday, I add one more half-finished novel to my pile of neglected books. My intention is always to finish them, but somehow textbooks and marathon study sessions curb any desire I have to read in my spare time. Fast-forward a few months and I’m never sure whether I should pick up where I left off, start over, or find a new book to inevitably love and leave.

Hello! I’m Katie.

I always struggle to come up with a New Year’s Resolution. I try to seriously consider “getting in shape” and “eating better” like most people, but fail to commit to either since they both sound so unappealing. By the time January 15^th rolls around I usually give up on finding a resolution at all.

My conundrum got Eden and I talking, though, mainly questioning “why do New Year’s Resolutions so often fail?” I recently read a tip about keeping your fitness goals that also applies to keeping (and achieving) your resolutions – make them doable. Don’t vow to go to the gym at 5am every morning if you already find it difficult to get out of bed at 7am for work. Eden recommended the S.M.A.R.T system to help create and focus your goals:

Specific

Measurable

Attainable

Realistic

Timely

My official New Year’s Resolution will be to come up with a S.M.A.R.T goal for 2011 (with enough time to see it through, of course)!

Do you have trouble coming up with New Year’s Resolutions? Or is the hardest part keeping them? How do you stay on track?

Spare some change?

Last night we did a radical thing, we did a remarkable purge of something I didn’t realize was weighing me down as heavily as it was. We got rid of our spare change. All of it.

We have had three large containers of coins kicking around the house for as long as I can remember. The first was an old glass bear-shaped peanut butter jar. The second was a war-torn cardboard cylinder from a bottle of booze, and the third was an old Tootsie Roll piggy bank which contained only pennies.

We had amassed so many coins that to roll them all was incredibly daunting. Did you know that you can’t just dump a bag of coins on a bank teller? Let me rephrase that…  you can’t go into the bank with loose change and expect them to pour it into a magic machine that will sort and count it. Weird huh?

We’d actually tried to get rid of our change on three other occasions. We hauled it all the way to the coin counting machine at our local grocery store only to have to turn around and go home again after discovering that the machine was out of order. THREE TIMES.

Do you realize how heavy three jars of coins can be?

We thought we’d try our luck again last week. We picked a grocery store that had a coin counting machine and crossed our fingers that it was fully operational. On the way to the store we all took turns guessing how much money we’d collected. The jars had heft, and made good door stops, and could possibly kill someone if they were dropped from a second storey window. Hmm. I guessed $70.00. My husband guessed $150 (but then rescinded because it seemed crazily high) and the girls guessed somewhere in between.

It felt like the Price is Right, only a lot more exciting because it was our own money.

I was happy to see that the coin counting machine we chose was in good working condition.  Here’s a tip for you: read the fine print (this particular unit takes a mafia-like 11% cut!) before you pour your money into the slot. We went ahead, mostly because I couldn’t bear bringing all that change home again.  

Oh my, what a satisfying jingle it all made. I hung around for a few minutes while the girls shovelled more coins into the machine. I left them in the care of their father in order to get a jumpstart on the grocery shopping.

I was just about to leave the produce department when the three of them approached me with wide grins on their faces.

“Guess how much money we have!” they shouted.

I couldn’t fathom.

They handed me the printout. We had a credit of $137.00 to use at the grocery store, and that’s after the 11% cut. Of that total, $30.07 was in pennies alone.

It was worth hauling our coins in to the store. The groceries pretty much paid for themselves that night. Pretty good for some spare change, isn’t it?