End of Summer Stands for Green Cleaning
If you have kids going back to school or off to college, now is the perfect time to tackle those projects you put off! Let’s clean out our closets and crowded home areas while helping the community and the environment in meaningful ways. The excessive amount of t-shirts and never before touched items collecting dust in your garage and closets can serve a better purpose when you donate them. When Goodwill South Florida resells your donations in its 34 stores, it is keeping millions of pounds of materials out of landfills every year, and significant amounts of greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere.
There is a double benefit in donating your clothes to GoodwillSFL. Every time you clean your closets and donate, you help us fund programs that train, employ and provide job placement for people with disabilities and other barriers to work.
We applaud the select few that already enjoyed summer cleaning before reading our tips, but we’ve broken down the decluttering and organizing process to eliminate the stress that almost consumed the majority of us when we heard the phrase “summer cleaning”:
Six Easy Steps to Tidy Up Your Home
Choose a space to begin with and empty it.
- Select an area in your home such as a closet, bedroom, or garage to organize first
- Remove everything: set clothes and other items flat on a table, bed, or a typically preferred cleaning space—the floor
- If you choose to declutter your child’s bedroom, include them in the process to decide which of their personal items to keep
Clean area and prepare for sorting
- Sweep or vacuum the empty area
- Collect old bags and containers to place unwanted and unused items
Analyze and separate each wearable item
- Look carefully at each item: make sure it fits and still serves a purpose
- If you haven’t worn a piece of clothing for a year, you’ll most likely never wear it again, and should be considered for donation so someone else can enjoy it
- Check for wear and tear: items with missing buttons or broken zippers will usually never be worn again if they have not been fixed by now
- Sort everything into two piles: label one “Keep” and the other “Donate”
Search for other items such as supplies
- As your child prepares to enter the new school year, consider donating their old backpacks, binders, or summer reading books that surely won’t be read again
- Assess the space those old toys and sports team uniforms take up, kids grow up fast and always want the latest items
Strategic replacement
- Hang clothing back in your closet organized by type such as shirts, pants, jackets, etc.
- Consider purchasing shelves or other pieces of organizing furniture from one of our 34 stores to be used in your garage or closet, allowing you to find items easily
- Smaller items can be placed in more compact boxes and then organized in one larger box to group accessories of similar purpose
- Labels are a helpful way to be able to identify what is inside each box
“The Donate Pile”
- Fold items of clothing you have chosen to donate and place them into large bags along with other assorted items
- Drop off your much-appreciated donations at your nearest GoodwillSFL store and remember, what is one person’s recycled item may be another’s treasure
These 6 simple steps can change the home environment you live in every day, benefit individuals with disabilities in your community during their job search, and leave an impact on society at large through reduced landfill waste.
Your donations make our mission a reality and the GoodwillSFL family cannot thank you enough.
Shop. Donate. Create Jobs.
