Where is the Love?

By Christine Rose © 2009

Hello Fellow Suburbanites!!

It looks like this blog has opened a small office in the corner of my brain, and I am actually storing things there for future ref these days. Speaking of storing things, I run a small charity called Changing Winds Inc (www.changingwinds.org) and rather then collect tons of money, we collect tons of stuff and send it out to Indian Reservations in South Dakota which are, by the way, the poorest counties in the country.

Lots of people help, and living in a wealthy suburb allows us to collect massive amounts of clothing and furniture in really good shape. The idea is that there is so much stuff that exists in this country, but the weight of is balanced precariously on both edges of the country. If we don't spread it out, who knows, the weight of it all might snap off both the east and west coasts! So we are not only moving all the existing stuff to people who need it, we are possibly keeping the wealthier coasts intact by shipping much of our excess to the center of the country, the Heart Lands. Did you know that if you flew over the Black Hills in South Dakota, you would see that the entire region, which is the center of the country, actually is shaped like a heart? Well, now you know. :-)

Today, I spent the better part of my morning rearranging stuff that had been so generously dropped off by supporters (notably Betsy K Home Choreographers) over at Westy's Storage facilities, which donates garage size rooms to us, enabling to collect tons of stuff before we ship it out. (I apologize for the shameless plugs for our supporters, but hey, they deserve it!)

In plowing through the things that had been dropped off, I came across a book that someone had left. Now, you tell me if you think this was a good thing to drop off for the poorest people in the country. Do you think they really needed a book, featuring a nice middle class blonde housewife on the cover, called, Learning to Live With Less? Ouch! Somehow, it seems the people we are shipping stuff to could write their own version, don't you think? If you ask me, they could probably really teach us a thing or two about living with less. My guess is they have mastered it.

But hey, its hard for me to feel less then gracious when I look at all the incredible things that people did leave. Including their trash. Ooops. Did I say that? Sadly, yes. I did. Because it happens.

Have you ever really thought about the word Charity? What images come to mind when you consider the word? Sally Struthers and the Starving Children of Africa? (No, it is not a new band.) Anyway, no joke, those starving kids are probably the kind of images that all of us imagine. So here's a question, Why would we send them things that should thrown out?

For several years, we refused to take used goods, preferring to purchase new items with financial donations instead. However, so many people looked shocked and perplexed when we refused to accept used goods that I started to think, well, maybe in light of the economic crisis, and certainly environmentally, it might be a good idea to give it a try.

Our reputation on the reservations has always been good, and one woman who works at ICWA (which is the Indian Child Welfare Act agency) told us that they actually felt the love that was packed in all the boxes we send out. Gee, that was nice to hear. She also said, “You know, Christine, for years people have been sending us their junk. It felt like that was all they thought of us, that we were just worth the junk they sent to us.”

This year, in light of the economy and ecology, we thought, well, maybe there is a middle ground, and we can send out really good used stuff. We put out a call for items that are LIKE NEW with NO SIGNS OF WEAR. And wow! You should have seen the results! One man sent us a coat in which every pocket was ripped, and it smelled of cigarettes and was covered with greasy stains. It looked like someone had worn that coat every day for maybe ten years. To be nice, I thought, Well, maybe he really really loved that coat, and this was his way of sending the love. Maybe he didn't even see how worn out it was.

Then bags of shoes arrived; smelly shoes, with the heels worn down. Then stained baby clothes. Today I threw out a strange wicker shelving unit that was for some indecipherable use, and was shredded, with all the wicker sticks detached from the bottom. Old board games missing pieces. Chairs that had sticky stains on them. Broken electronics. A basket of computer wires....that went to nothing. One woman dropped off a beat up bed I would have expected to see for free on the side of the road, and she asked me for a tax deduction of $500.00.

So I am sitting here wondering just what it is when people think of charity. I know how it made me feel when I opened those boxes of dirty things. It made me feel gross, and dirty, and almost violated. Is that what charity means? I never realized what an amazing service Goodwill provides in that it gives us all a place to drop off the junk that may have a good degree of love attached to it, so much that we can't bear to throw it out. But when it comes to putting garbage directly into the hands of a person who is already suffering so many burdens, I have to ask, where is the love?