When I was in eighth grade I bought an 18 oz. bottle of something called “chocolate crème body wash.” It smelled incredible but washing with it was like soaping up with a Jello-O pudding snack; I abandoned the crème after one vile chocolate-y shower.

My mother, however, despite declaring the stuff  “utterly revolting,” used that body wash until every drop was gone. Why? Because she couldn’t bring herself to pour a nearly full, “perfectly good” bottle of goo down the drain.  Each morning for six months my mother would shower, put on a fancy suit, and leave for work smelling like a stale cupcake.

At the time I thought she was nuts, but 15 years later I find that I truly am my mother’s daughter. April is around the corner and I’ve embarked on some aggressive spring cleaning. For others, that might mean purging, but for me it’s more like shuffling: organizing things I no longer want or need into little shopping bags (which I also hoard) and leaving them by the door to push upon departing visitors like creepy party favors.

My inability to throw out anything that I deem to be “perfectly good” has raised more than a few eyebrows (even as they walk away with a nice wine opener and slightly used dish rack), so imagine my thrill when I read the words of How to Be an Everyday Philanthropist author Nicole Bouchard Boles : “The stuff we’ve crammed into the nooks and crannies of our homes has enormous (unfulfilled) philanthropic potential.”

I knew it! I knew it! I was born for this kind of giving.

Behold the bounty that will be shipped off to benefit the greater good.

Look at all this perfectly good stuff!

Clockwise from left:  A: Electronic odds and ends, mysterious wires, used CDs, power cords to long lost electronics. For the cost of a $6.99 shipping label, GreenDisk will recycle and safely dispose of all your techno-trash.  B: Miscellaneous books. They’re heading off to New York’s Prisoners’ Reading Encouragement Project, a non profit that works in with prison libraries. C: Knitting supplies. I picked up knitting in the spring of 2002 and by the winter of 2003, the love affair was over.  These barely used needles and balls of yarn are going to a woman who mentors a group of girls and wants to teach them how to knit. D: A phone I replaced over three years ago. It’s going to Cell Phones for Soldiers, an organization that sells old phones for parts and uses the money to buy prepaid calling cards for soldiers stationed overseas.

Cleaning up, paring down, passing things along to people who can actually do right by them. It’s about as satisfying as tossing an empty bottle of chocolate crème body wash into the recycling bin.

Happy Spring Cleaning!

–Assistant Editor Maisie Tivnan would like to record her knitting legacy for posterity: one third of a red mitten and a mysterious yellow triangle.

One man’s trash is another man’s treasure. Put another way, one kid’s nasty pair of kicks is another kid’s rubbery playground surface.

Inspired by the hundreds of no-cost ways to make a difference featured in How to Be an Everyday Philanthropist,  we decided to do our own small act of no-cost giving and hold a sneaker drive.  At the end of the week, we had collected a whopping 130 beat up, stinky, too tight, too old sneakers. 

The sneakers  were for the Nike-Reuse-a-Shoe program which recycles the sneakers into Nike Grind, a rubbery material used in athletic surfaces like running tracks, basketball courts and playgrounds. Nike has donated Nike Grind to 300 sport and playground surfacing projects across the country.

The picture above doesn’t do the pile justice.  It took three people toting four huge garbage bags through the hot, crowded streets of midtown to get them to the Niketown store.

It may not be John D. Rockefeller’s brand of philanthropy, but then again, the scientists of his day never found a clever way to recycle top hats.

John D. Rockefeller contemplates the merits of a Standard Oil spats drive