Author: Galina Fedorova, Founder, Gooddler

Recently I came across an article: “Dear World, let’s stop giving our crap to the poor.”

The article was arguing the point that attitude of many Americans, which is based on our sense of entitlement, is that the poor will be extremely happy to get our leftovers. It pointed out the fact that many consider a call to donate as a perfect opportunity to clean out our closets and attics; and it called us to “stop giving our crap to the poor”. The author talked about her travels to Africa and her personal experiences of being embarrassed seeing what had been donated, such as stained clothes and an old iPhone that could only hold a charge for 10 minutes. Pretty clear message, right? What  surprised me was the amount of responses this article received, with people’s opinions ranging from completely agreeing with the author to bashing her and blaming her for looking down on people whose donated items are not up to par with what she considers good.

Both sides brought up good points that I would like to summarize for you.

Those who took a side of the author and think that we should only be donating good items, items that we will continue to use ourselves:

1. Giving others our leftovers when giving yourself the best shows stems from our self-centeredness and arrogance.
2. We should care about other countries’ industries and not dump our junk on their poor.
3. We should only give to others what we can give to them in person, otherwise the items end up in the bin anyway, we should not kid ourselves feeling good that we donated, when we donate crap.
4. No one likes to see clothes wasted, but unless you are sending tattered clothes to a seamstress or broken items to a handyman, sending them would also be a waste.
5. Bad items should ONLY be donated to appropriate agencies that specialize in junk. They will bundle them and sell to companies that can recycle them (make rugs out of old clothing, ect)

Those who felt that any item donated is valuable, even if it’s stained or broken:

1. Churches and other world missions ask for used clothing/home items. They would rather sift through all the bad stuff, than to receive very little.
2. Frugal people who buy items that are already used later donate them with good heart, hoping someone else will be able to use it again. Nice things many times are donated by those who overindulge and overspend, and who would care less about poor.
3. What you might consider junk, to many is a gift. If you don’t give it, you wouldn’t know.
4. There are retailers that repair items for sale (Goodwill). It might only need one screw in the hand of a handyman to transform from waste to treasure.
5. Making people feel “guilty” that they donated items that are not up to our standards is arrogant and prideful.
6. Taking poor quality clothes/items from people ensures the items will not end up in landfills as they get sorted out and appropriately used.

What is your opinion? How do you donate goods?