Use the Longest Days to Declutter and Donate

Use the longest days of the year to volunteer for a cause that’s close to your heart, GoodNet suggests. “Volunteering brings with it a deep appreciation of all that you have in life, and helping those in need is a firm reminder of what really matters,” the blog says. One easy way to help veterans in need is to use a few of those extra daylight hours to weed out your unused clothing, small appliances and other household junk and make a donation to ClothingDonations.org. We’ll pick up your donation and resell your castoff goods to fund valuable veterans’ programs.

What Your Donations Do for Veterans

If you’ve donated clothing and other household items to ClothingDonations.org in the past, you may be aware that your stuff helps fund programs that support veterans throughout the country. But do you know how, and what your donations fund?

When you give the things you no longer need, the Vietnam Veterans Association (VVA) resells them in bulk to partner thrift and secondhand stores, where other people can shop for great deals on lightly used stuff.

VVA takes the proceeds and uses them to underwrite range of programs. On the national level, the association helps veterans tap government benefits and health care guaranteed to those who have served, and lobbies on behalf of veterans in the nation’s capital.

Aware that war can have challenging health effects for decades after a deployment, VVA offers outreach programs to veterans suffering from Agent Orange exposure, homelessness, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and substance abuse.

It offers programs targeted to POW/MIAs and their families, minority veterans, women veterans, and justice-involved and jailed veterans. In other words, it is a comprehensive, wraparound service organization operated by and dedicated to Vietnam veterans.

As Vietnam veterans have aged and the country has continued to engage in overseas conflicts, VVA has expanded its mission to welcome veterans of all U.S. conflicts. “Never again will one generation of veterans abandon another” is its motto.

VVA programs are supplemented and supported at the local level by the organization’s more than 500 chapters nationwide. The chapters use some of the money raised through ClothingDonations.org to host educational and social events, honor veterans, and give back to their communities through parades, scholarships and sponsorships.

Last month, for example, dozens of VVA chapters celebrated National Vietnam War Veterans Day on March 29, hosting luncheons, memorial observances and educational programs around the country to thank veterans living and dead for their service.

While donations to ClothingDonations.org don’t pay for the entirety of the programs VVA offers, the money raised eases the organization’s fundraising burden while providing you — the loyal readers of the Organizing Blog — with an easy, earth-friendly way to get rid of your unwanted stuff.

The nation’s veterans appreciate every donation, and thank you for your support!

Use Your Extra Hour to Declutter

First proposed by Benjamin Franklin as a way for Parisians to save money on candles, daylight saving time became ingrained in American society as a way for farmers to make the most of longer days. In the 1970s, daylight time justified itself as a solution to trim energy usage. Today, those long summer nights are still coveted for leisure activities.

Daylight time comes to an end this weekend, so people in most of the nation (except for those in Arizona and Hawaii, which do not observe it) will turn their clocks back an hour on Sunday morning before dawn. And while it may be disheartening to see darkness fall before dinner, you can use that extra hour in your schedule.

Many Americans see the extra hour in the middle of the night as a bonus hour for sleep. However, few will actually take advantage of the extra hour of rest, the Harvard Health Blog says. Since most people’s bodies have become accustomed to rising at a particular hour, regardless of what the clock says, it will take several days to adjust.

If you’re up early, however, you can use the extra hour to do something you’ve been meaning to do anyway. Follow Simply Designing’s advice and do an hour of decluttering every day starting with the kitchen, and your home will be cleaner and more clutter-free in just seven days.

Be More With Less suggests getting rid of 100 things in a “decluttering burst” that lasts only an hour. Grab a box for donations and a bag for trash, set the timer, and eliminate 10 things from the junk drawer. Then move on systematically to the kitchen, car, closets, bedroom, and so on. When the bell rings, you’ll be amazed at how quickly the eliminated items have piled up!

Sound impossible? It isn’t. In every one of those rooms, there are products that have expired or failed to live up to their promise. “Just in case” items are the worst kind of clutter, the blog says, because “just in case means never.” Get rid of them, and you will be able to “stop living in fear of not having enough.”

Once you’ve used the extra hour that daylight time’s end has provided to get rid of a few things, contact ClothingDonations.org for a donation pickup; it’s another time-saver in your ongoing decluttering quest that helps veterans nationwide. Then, take solace in the fact that you’ll be spending five months of wintry darkness in a newly clutter-free home.

Harvest a Few Fall Deals at the Thrift

The apples are crisp, and the air is crisper … it must be fall! And there’s no better time to score a few bargains at the local thrift store. With cold weather and the biggest holidays just around the corner, you can prepare for the season without spending a lot of money — and at the same time, help fund veterans’ programs.

The first thing you’ll want to look for at the thrift is cold-weather clothing. If you need sweaters, scarves, gloves or a winter coat, you can find them on the cheap at the thrift. Likewise with blankets, comforters and throws — and if you start shopping for such items early, you’ll have a great selection of stuff from which to choose.

You may also want to add a little fall flair to your home. Try a warm color palette and a harvest theme, Midwest Living saysCorn husks, mums, gourds, leaves and pine cones are among the many natural accents that suggest the season; use them creatively and emphasize red, brown and orange hues to celebrate autumn.

Halloween closes out the first full month of fall, and many thrift stores will have lightly used or brand-new decorations from last year that people either didn’t use or are no longer using. String lights, paper skeletons, plastic lawn decorations, you name it; they all wind up at the thrift for reuse. But they won’t be there for long!

The thrift is also a great source of raw materials for your Halloween costume. In no time, you can source the used clothing and accessories needed to cement your status as a disco dude, zombie, cheerleader or pirate. For something more topical, you can pick up a dark suit and an extra-long red tie fast at most thrifts.

Whatever you find, you’ll experience the thrill of the hunt and save yourself some money while helping the nation’s veterans. Donations of lightly used clothing, housewares and accessories made to ClothingDonations.org are sold to thrifts for resale, with all proceeds going directly to programs that help veterans access housing, health care and more.

So shop freely for all of your fall festivities! But don’t buy new — harvest some deals at the thrift!

Patriotic Craft Ideas for the Fourth

You may not have time to go all-out with Independence Day happening midweek this year, but you can still bring a few crafty touches to your home to make it more patriotic — and the local secondhand store will be a valuable source of materials. You can thrift a few mason jars to create Fourth of July lanterns, paint a patriotic shutter or create a clothespin wreath to celebrate the red, white and blue, Country Living suggests. More patriotic still, buying your craft materials at thrift stores supplied by donations to ClothingDonations.org helps fund programs benefiting the nation’s veterans.