If you’re thinking that now is the time to declutter your home, clean out the garage, or clean out your closet you’d be right. At the end of the year we are more likely to focus on moving forward and clearing away the things that we no longer love or need. Maybe it’s the holidays or the incoming new year that drives us to mad cleaning frenzies. Regardless, as you get ready to dive deep into the mess, consider making Goodwill your place to donate.
I always consider donating before tossing things into the trash. I mean, just because it’s of no use to me, doesn’t mean it won’t be of use to someone else. As long as the item isn’t damaged, still works, or can be worn, it deserves a second chance. Just a few months ago, I spent several hours – no, make that days – cleaning out different spaces and donating as much as I could.
It’s those second chance purchases that help others in the community. Goodwill’s Donate Stuff, Create Jobs campaign works to help our communities. Goodwill has over 3,200 retail stores and an online outlet site. Whenever someone buys something you or I donated, the profit from that item goes to help fund job training services for the people in our communities.
That’s social good that goes beyond a donation. Each item could help someone get job preparation training, financial education, English-language training, child care, transportation, the list of benefits goes on. When you think about the nearly nine million Americans that are under-employed or out of work, how could you choose to toss your child’s old toys instead of donating them?
In 2015 alone, over 300,000 people were put to work by being served by Goodwill’s job training and job preparation programs. That number might sound small but when you do the math, it works out to roughly one person finding a job every 23 seconds of every business day. TWENTY-THREE SECONDS EVERY BUSINESS DAY. Now 300,000 doesn’t seem so small, does it?
Calculate how much your donation helps your local community by using Goodwill’s Donation Impact Calculator, a feature available within the Goodwill Locator App available for Android and iOS devices and at www.Goodwill.org.
Now, doesn’t this make you want to get up and go clean out those closets, drawers, and other areas that need a good decluttering? Cleaning for a cause always gets me motivated!
