Freecycle: One great idea!
When a family moved from Blue Ash to Montgomery, they did some decluttering at the old house and remodeling at the new one. They had a lot of usable things that were too good to throw away and not accepted at a donation center. They posted the items — a cedar swing set, an entire house’s worth of Pella windows, a portable gazebo, a bedroom set — on Freecycle, a sort of online, free yard sale. One by one they gave each of the items to someone living nearby who could use them.
Another Montgomery resident remodeled her kitchen recently. The homeowner had a Jenn-Air oven original to the house in good working condition, but did not fit into her need for a double oven. Rather than toss it on top of "Mount Rumpke," she posted it to Freecycle. Two days later a Madeira family picked up the oven to replace their nonworking one.
None of the exchanges involved any money and were offered without cost to the new owners.
The rules of Freecycle are simple: everything must be free, legal and appropriate for all ages. Members join a local email group to respond to one another’s posts by private email. They make arrangements for the exchange of the items. The beauty of using email is that you can describe the condition. A non-working lawnmower might be garbage to one person, but easily fixable to another.
The Freecycle concept spread from Arizona. Groups are local. The exchanges are made between people who live near one another. The concept has now grown to nearly 4,000 groups and more than 4 million members worldwide.
CinciEast, the local Freecycle group, currently serves around 3,500 members in the eastern suburbs. Membership is free.
Because group emails are distributed by Yahoo groups, moderators prevent solicitations and other abuses. Once a member, you can choose whether to receive the posts as individual emails or in digest form. People who are members find it a great way to both give and receive.
For more information, or to join, visit freecycle.org.
The Freecycle program is endorsed by the Montgomery Environmental Advisory Commission.