Spring Cleaning For A Cause: 7 Ways To Give

Spring has officially sprung. March 20 marked the official beginning of spring, which means you may already be digging through your closet to switch out sweaters for swimsuits. Symbolically throwing out your winter doldrums by purging a packed closet is one of the season's eternal rites, but spring cleaning can often leave you feeling a little guilty about tossing perfectly good stuff.

At HuffPost Impact, we feel the same way. Piles of old computers and awkwardly out-of-date sweaters have languished in our homes for far too many a month out of the vague sense we should do something more with them. That's why we looked into a few ways you can clean out your closet while you clear your conscience, by donating unused items to charities.

Here are seven ways you can connect your gently used goods with people who are ready to wear them out or contribute other household clutter to reduce your footprint and increase your impact.

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Old Kicks Can Keep Kickin

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Save old sneaks by sending them to Soles4Souls, a nonprofit that distributes "gently" used shoes to those around the world who need them. According to the website, Soles4Souls has "distributed nearly 12 million pairs to people in 125 countries." If you want to donate shoes that are no longer wearable, you can send them to Nike's "Reuse a shoe" where they will be recycled into tracks, basketball courts, playgrounds and more.

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Save old sneaks by sending them to Soles4Souls, a nonprofit that distributes "gently" used shoes to those around the world who need them. According to the website, Soles4Souls has "distributed nearly 12 million pairs to people in 125 countries."

If you want to donate shoes that are no longer wearable, you can send them to Nike's "Reuse a shoe" where they will be recycled into tracks, basketball courts, playgrounds and more.

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Trash Treasure

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Comments

[Caixiawo Chencaixia]

05:06 AM on 04/19/2011

mbt shoes
walking shoes
mbt shoes clearance
mbt shoes sale

[todea]

05:58 PM on 04/11/2011

Another use for your old phones is http://www.hopephones.org - you can see a video about their work here -> http://www.youtube.com/hopephones. Old phones get recycled responsibly and the organization gets $$ to buy new phones for their work improving healthcare in developing nations.

[SaundraS]

08:58 AM on 03/31/2011

OK, the Huffington Post is known for highlighting some fairly questionable philanthropic advice, and this is no exception. Do not send your used junk overseas. It often costs more to ship the goods than to purchase them locally and flooding the market with free goods hurts the people trying to make a living by selling those same types of goods. These types of programs are more geared towards meeting the donors' needs than to meeting the needs of the people they're trying to help.
Donated goods are only appropriate on a local level. See this post for more information http://goodintents.org/core-posts/donating-goods-overseas

[Natti]

02:10 PM on 03/31/2011

Saundra,

Thanks for sharing this. I had no idea. I donate clothes/shoes to my local Salvation Army, but keep my old electronics around. I was tempted to follow HP's advice, but what I just read on goodintents.org makes more sense.

[Harriet99]

09:56 PM on 03/31/2011

I disagree. This reader has good intentions but throws the baby out with the bathwater. Of course people need to check out where they send donations but we can come up with a thousand reasons for not doing something. As the article makes clear, the suggested donations are not for disaster relief. They are very specific organizations that focus on a variety of needs. Instead of what not to do, the commenter could have made some constructive suggestions.like the article does.