Created For A Place: Reality Check

In the course of collecting items to consign next week my house has been completely inundated with children's clothing. Most of it very small. And not all of it consignable. I don't know if you know this or not, but not everything can be sold at a consignment sale. To qualify items must be "high quality" and in "excellent" condition. All fine and good. I totally understand. I mean the whole point of the consigning world is to get one person's used-but-still-in-very-usable-condition belongings into another person's possession with the seller and consigning agent making a few bucks along the way. No problem. As a mother of four, soon to be five, I will be the first to say that it is a good deal.

So, the question arises, however, what do you do with the items you have that are not in "excellent" condition or would no longer be described as "high quality"? And what about the clothes that are simply not the right season for the sale you are participating in? And if you are collecting clothing from whomever is willing to donate to your cause, what do you do with their items that no longer meet these standards or seasonal needs? Well, with the permission of those who donated, there are a few different options.

One option is to pull out whatever your family or any other family you know might be willing and able to wear and thus donate things further along. I don't know about you, but a small little bleach mark or stain doesn't keep much off of my children. I mean they are children who are actually going to wear the clothes and get them dirty. I'm not too worried about a small mark that might be a precursor to what will come. And as for the season thing, my husband will be the first to tell you I have bins of hand-me-downs (from our own kids and cousins..) just waiting for their day in the sun.

A second option is to pull out whatever doesn't meet consigning standards but still meets Goodwill or Salvation Army standards and create a different "donate" pile. These might be some of those wrong season items. Or perhaps something has a small pindot stain or missing button. Easy to fix needs that make the item "non-consignable" but perfectly usable in the thrift shop environment and thus donated to others to sell.

Another option might be a local clothing swap among friends. This is a good use for those wrong-season clothes that meet the "high quality" and "excellent condition" requirements but can't be sold right now. For me, this worked out well as my MOPS group is having a clothing swap this week and thus, after doing a bit of sorting, I have gotten these clothes ready for others to view and take to use as they can. Another plus here is that the items in this category that don't get selected by a MOPS mom will be donated to Teen Challenge and thus still be put to good use.

And, of course, there will always be those items that are simply so far past their prime that they really just need to be put out of their misery and thrown away. Probably not too many of those in a bag full of clothes someone donated to you, but a few might have gotten past the inspector general and come along for the ride. For those items, you simply have to say farewell and move on to the rest of the stack.

But guess what. There is yet another category of clothing that needs to be considered. Take a boy's size 24 month summer romper for instance. It is cute. It is striped to look like a baseball uniform. It has a cuddly little bear holding a ball and mitt on the lower left stomach area. But right next to that bear is a quarter sized pink spot where it should be navy blue like the other side. What do you do with that? You don't have any children that small. You don't know anyone with a son that size. The pink bleach spot is a bit too big to really donate the item to the Salvation Army or take to a clothing swap. But there is absolutely nothing else wrong with this adorable outfit and it just doesn't seem right to toss it in the trash. So, what do you do?

Well, if you are me and take a moment to think you will realize that there is a marvelous lady named Mariah living in an orphanage on the far side of the world who might just re-purpose these clothes. A woman who when asked tells you, "I am sorry but a small stain is not something we discard clothes for- when you are clothing close to 200 children that is not even close to an issue." Now there, my friends, is a true reality check.

We are talking about clothes. Clothes that are cute and springy and have a lot of wear left in them. But in our American possession-oriented culture these clothes are considered undesirable and unworthy. The majority of people would toss them aside, throw them in the trash, or maybe even cut them up for rags. But in many other places these very same articles of clothing are coveted. And widely celebrated when received. You see, it's not about the stains or the season. It's about need. Pure and simple.

We live in a very disposable society, We renew our cell phones every couple years. A sock gets a hole in it and we toss it in the trash. We waste food at restaurants with no regard for those who are going to bed hungry at night. We burn through paper towels and newspapers and water bottles and scores of other things never really thinking about any of it. And yet there are hundreds, no thousands, no millions of children out there who have no idea what most of those things even are. There existence is narrowed down to that one single word - need.

Now, I'm not trying to make some political, change-your-ways type of statement here. And I am certainly not trying to blow my own horn for I am as guilty of all of these things as the next person. But I do hope that maybe, just maybe, I make a little headway in educating people of the need. I mean, really? Clothing? Clothing that people have given to me free, that I have sitting in my home desperately needing a place to go... How simple is that? And how easy to miss the opportunity.

If I didn't happen to know that wonderful woman living in that beautiful home of children, I may have simply decided to throw all these clothes away. I might have simply taken the path of least resistance and tossed them in the trash. And I guess that is my point in writing this. To let you know - there is another option. It is not just me that can help fill this simple clothing need because I happen to be collecting clothing to sell for an adoption fundraiser. You could do it too. It's easy. Try visiting this website: Provide Needed Supplies . It will give you a list of needed items needed for orphan care at Maria's Big House of Hope along with specific directions on how to donate them. If donating clothing isn't really in your realm of interest, perhaps you don't have small children or access to appropriate sizes, how about doing a bit of shopping for medical supplies. Following that same link will provide a list of over-the-counter medical supplies that can be donated as well.

Or how about this - why not become a monthly Show Hope sponsor? Check out the information at http://www.showhope.org/Donate.aspx. With the simple commitment of $35 per month you can do your part to provide both adoption assistance and orphan care. Don't want to commit to a monthly amount? How about a one time donation? By following the same link you can donate as little as $5 toward the areas "Most Urgently Needed." Or maybe create an "Honorary Gift" donation. Or perhaps you are in a position to be greatly generous and would care to donate toward funding an adoption or helping to fund a surgery. You can use the same link to do that too. The point is there are lots of ways to help. And there are few reasons not to. The real question is, are you ready to dive in?