Keep, Donate, Toss.
It sounds easy enough. So, why do I have bags of clothes to donate taking up valuable real estate in every closet of my house?
What if I told you that your donation bags could be out of sight in a few minutes time?
My garage overflows with cardboard boxes awaiting Recycling Day and bags of items I plan to donate to charities. Confession: if you open my trunk, you will find at least one or two bags of the same.
Point being, I have good intentions. I give clothes to friends, sell the occasional item on eBay, Poshmark or through local Facebook groups, and arrange pickups from charitable organizations. Despite these best efforts, I can’t keep up.
Things changed for me when I learned about Give Back Box .
What Is Give Back Box?
Give Back Box is a non-profit that allows you to easily donate to various charities, using nothing more than a cardboard box.
Not only can you feel good about your donation but you also reduce your carbon footprint by reusing cardboard boxes sitting around your home.
How Give Back Box Works:
- Take a box (any box) and fill it with your unwanted clothing, shoes, jewelry, or household items (no electronics, liquids or the usual prohibited items).
- Go to Give Back Box directly or fill out on a form on one of their partner retailer’s sites.
- Download and print out a shipping label. Shipping is free. The above-mentioned partners take care of the cost.
- Seal box and attach shipping label.
- Fill out the tax receipt itemizing your contents (optional).
- Drop off the box at a UPS retailer or post office. I chose the extra lazy route and arranged for USPS pickup.
In under five minutes, I packed up three boxes (including my professional button-downs from three careers ago). I placed them on my front porch, ready for pick up by our mailman. It’s amazing how accomplished I felt moving these boxes out of my peripheral vision.
Where do these boxes go? Mine went to a Goodwill Center in Manhattan.
Note: If you’re looking to donate to a specific charity listed on the Give Back Box’s website, you will have to pay a donation fee (usually $15). Charities include children’s charities, women charities, homeless charities, animal charities, and those for people with disabilities.
Donate Used LEGO Sets
Wondering what to do with your old sets of LEGO bricks?
Give Back Box takes care of that too. It’s called LEGO Replay! Simply, dump your LEGO sets into a cardboard box, attach a shipping label, and send them off to kids in need.
Check out some favorite pop culture LEGO sets here, ones that adults will especially want for themselves.
What do I love most about Give Back Box?
- Convenience: No driving, no waiting, no procrastinating.
- Reuse and Recycle: Old cardboard boxes don’t just get recycled but reused.
- Paper Trail: At the end of the tax year, all I have to do is log into my Give Back Box account and print out my itemized donation receipts.
Check out these related posts:
Amazing Companies that Give Back
How to Turn Your Loose Change into Holiday Cash
Seriously, it couldn’t be easier.
Michelle Platt is a former attorney and teacher who loves to do the research so you don’t have to. She takes a deep dive into each topic and writes about her wellness journey here. She loves trying out new workouts and products to share with you. She is currently completing her personal training certification. This native New Yorker recently made the move to the suburbs of Minneapolis, where she lives with her husband, two kids, and two dogs.