Last week a lady at one of our local churches organized a children’s clothing exchange. What a fantastic idea! As budgets get tighter, organizing events like this is one way we can help each other with necessary expenses. It was especially brilliant planning it just before school started, helping a lot of families get some school clothes for their kids for free.
The process was simple. Friday afternoon this sweet lady and a few other volunteers were at the church to accept nice children’s clothes from anyone who wanted to contribute. It was a great incentive to clean out the kids’ drawers and closets! They received quite a few donations, and even some in adult sizes. Then the volunteers organized the clothes onto tables by size, separating boy and girl clothes to make it super easy to find something that would fit your kids.
Saturday morning, they opened the church and had grocery sacks and kitchen trash bags available to fill. If you organized one of these and had a large turnout on pick up day, you might need to limit the number of clothes any one person could take. We had more dropping off than picking up, so everyone was allowed to take all they could use. There were even people bringing more in on Saturday. You did not have to contribute to take clothes home with you–everyone was welcome.
The extra clothes were given to another town that was organizing the same type of exchange, and any extras after that were going to be given to a local charity. A children’s clothing exchange is a great way to share and help relieve some of the burden of families in your own community.
Keep preparing! Angela
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That is a wonderful idea. Around here, even the clothes banks have problems with people coming and taking too much and in sizes they cannot wear. The people take the clothing and sell them in their own tables at the flea market or sell them at resale shops. Limiting items and requiring people to bring the child or children is another idea for control. One church gives away backpacks full of school supplies. However, no one can get anything without the child being present.
A tool exchange. Some people end up inheriting tools when grandparents or parents pass on, and then they end up sometimes with duplicates or even more of the same item. So a tool exchange, might be an idea. Also some people change bed sizes, either go up or down in size and then that could leave them with some really good sheets that they can’t use (well can’t use if they don’t quilt or sew). So maybe a sheet exchange, but not sure many preppers would be doing that. Usually preppers know how to sew and can use the sheets for quilt backs or to make quilting squares or quilting pieces out of. I’ve seen preppers use them to make aprons that they could sell at flee markets though. Never waste something that is still good.