How to Help Your Community While You Declutter

Are you taking time this holiday season to declutter? I like the house to look great from top to bottom while it’s all decked and jolly. And the end of the year is a great time to cull your wardrobe.

It doesn’t take long for my closet to get overly cluttered with clothes I no longer wear. I still have my prom dress, for goodness sake (black velvet; it’s gorgeous.) From office and conference attire to lounge wear, the closet can easily become a messy place. Every year I go through and ask myself if the clothes are still right for me. If they aren’t then it’s time for them to go.

However, I’m not about to send perfectly good clothing to a landfill. I know that by taking my gently used clothing to Goodwill, I’m not only helping someone in need, I’m helping to create jobs. The revenue from an item donated to Goodwill helps the community by funding job training and placement opportunities for the unemployed and underemployed. Thanks to the job training programs made possible by donations of clothes and household items, Goodwill helped place more than 312,000 in jobs in the United States and Canada in 2015 — that’s one person finding a job every 23 seconds of every business day. So you’re literally donating your stuff AND helping to create jobs.

Nearly nine million Americans are out of jobs today – being able to support training, education services, and even financial services helps people get back on their feet and back into the community.  Want to know how much your donation is actually worth? 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.

If you think that when you declutter last season’s fashions it won’t make a big impact, consider this: the 164 local and independent Goodwill nonprofit organizations provided job placement services, career counseling, onsite and virtual skills training, and other community-based services (such as financial education, youth mentoring and access to transportation and child care) to millions of people last year.

Nearly 2 million people engaged in face-to-face Goodwill services to advance in their careers, and more than 35 million people accessed Goodwill’s virtual education, training, mentoring and online learning services to strengthen their skills and gain industry-recognized credentials.

So pack up those pumps and cardigans and see what they can do for someone else. Plus, you are making more room for the newest styles and fashions.