Freecycle

I belong to my local Freecycle group. If you've never heard of Freecycle go to www.freecycle.org and read up about it. But if you are too lazy to do that here is a brief description of what it's all about from their website:

The Freecycle Network™ is made up of 4,663 groups with 6,353,000 members across the globe. It's a grassroots and entirely nonprofit movement of people who are giving (& getting) stuff for free in their own towns. It's all about reuse and keeping good stuff out of landfills. Each local group is moderated by a local volunteer (them's good people). Membership is free. To sign up, find your community by entering it into the search box above or by clicking on “Browse Groups” above the search box. Have fun!

I have belonged to my local group for about a year or so. It's a great way to clean out and get rid of things that you know could really be used by someone somewhere and it's just too much of a shame to throw it away. I know that I could probably sell a lot of the stuff on ebay but that tends to take a lot of time and effort for not a lot of profit.

Just this last fall we were moving things around in the office and had a lot of extra "stuff" that we just didn't need anymore. Like 3-ring binders, stamplers, green hanging folders - stuff like that. All I had to do was send one little email "offering" it up for grabs and I was able to make someone else's day.

Now... on to why I'm really writting about this. Just tonight as I'm sitting here at home watching TV and going from knitting on a sock to playing around on the computer I get an email that someone in my immediate (same town even) area was looking for a coat for her pony. A friend of mine had given me a XXL pet coat for Alley to use in the winter when it got really cold but it was WAY too big for her. Instead of just getting rid of it I held on to it. I think I had plans of putting it up on ebay or something one of these days... but never did. I knew exactly where it was and I after reading her email I dug it out and sent her an email giving her the dimensions and condition of it. Within minutes (and I mean less than 5) I got an email back from her stating that it did sound like something she could use and that she could pick it up tomorrow. This would have been fine except that it's just so damn cold out there that I knew that her pony needed this coat TONIGHT! Keep in mind that this is all happening at about 10:15 pm and aproximatly 1 degree outside. So I emailed her again saying that I knew that it was strange to offer but if she was up to it I could meet her tonight at a local gas station to give her the coat so her pony wouldn't have be out in the cold without a coat for one more night. And that is just what we did.

Within 30 minutes of her original post she had exactly what she was looking for and I had found a "use" for that coat that I have been hanging on to for an unknown reason for a few years. AND most importantly an animal that has to bout out in this rediculously cold weather will be warm tonight.

Even though it's very cold outside - my heart is full and warm and for that I am truely thankful.