Oprah.

I really like Oprah's magazine. I don't read all of the articles because sometimes they are too deep for me. I often rip out pages of her magazine because there is something I want to refer back to, buy, cook, etc. I find random rip outs all over the house. I decided to share with you something I ripped out of Oprah's March issue that I thought was useful. The article was called "Who wants my _____?" and shares ways to donate, recycle, sell stuff you don't want or need anymore. My favorites:

1.) Stuffed Animals - Send them to SAFE (stuffedanimalsforemergencies.com). They donate gently used stuffed animals to homeless shelters, hospitals and emergency aid workers like paramedics who give them to kids they meet on their calls.

2.) Children's DVDs - If your kids are "over" a certain DVD, you can donate them to Kids Flicks (kidflicks.org) and they donate them to pediatric departments at children's hospitals.

3.) Freecycle (I use this a lot) - Go to freecycle.org and sign up for your community's freecycle group (its a yahoo group). You post to it stuff you don't need anymore and people respond and let you know they would like it. I just leave stuff outside my doorstep and they pick it up, you don't really have to coordinate a time or anything and don't have to interact with the people picking them up. I once picked up a bunch of mason jars and used them for a shower I was co-hosting. The guy DID want to chat and insisted to tell me about his divorce that he is in the middle of and about the floorplan of his new apartment. So...yeah..moving on...

4.) Musical Instruments - Donate your instruments to mustcreate.org (a SF Bay Area based program) and they will donate the instruments to needy schools.