Monday, November 17, 2008

freecycle.org

Most people have heard of freecycle. The website was created to help people unload their quality second-hand items to someone willing to take it. Their goal is to keep good stuff out of the landfill by connecting "sellers" and "buyers". A yahoo group is the foundation of the site, so essentially, you're sending an email to a distribution list and hopefully one of their subscribers wants your item. The system works reciprocally as well (you can post want ads). 

I was generously given two different strollers to use the last few months and they have served me well. Once I decided what I really wanted and bought a new one, I no longer need the first two but Goodwill wouldn't take the strollers. I decided to give freecycle a try. 

I literally posted the strollers at 11:13am and they were both picked up by 5:00pm. The best part about it, the strollers are going to two needy families. 

Right now I'm in love with freecycle so I'm hesitant to tell you about the people that struck me as odd but it's all part of the experience. There is a family that lists their items, then they collect the responses from people who want the stuff and decide who deserves to get each item. I can't even describe why I think that's weird. Then there was another poster who said she would chose the "winner" of her item by evaluating the spelling in the reply emails. 

I used the first-come, first-served approach.

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