So many of us in the Untied States do not even realize the amount of good we can actually do simply by spending a Saturday morning going through our closets and drawers and donating the clothing we no longer wear.
We might go for months without even thinking about the extra clothing objects we have around our house. We put things in the attic or in the basement and forget about them. When we go through our things and find that we have plenty to give away, we might not think what we have is worth the trouble to even give away. So, we through our clothing and textiles into the trash, where it gets hauled away to the dump or landfill to be of no use whatsoever.
What we do not often realize is just how important it can be to donate what we no longer have a use for. Clothing donations lead directly to support for military families, feeding the hungry, and monetary support for many charitable causes. Charitable clothing donations are a major arm of military support when it comes to helping veterans when they return from service and helping military families.
Clothing donations have always been a good way to raise money for charitable causes. When you look back to 2007, you will see that there was, by a rough estimate, $5.8 billion worth of clothing-related donations. Most of these donations were made to charity foundations in the United States.
In 2011, the reported recovering rate of textiles and used clothing was somewhere in the neighborhood of about 15.3%. That same year in America, roughly 2 million tons of clothing were donated to charities or recycled. With only a 15.3% recovery rate, it is very easy to imagine just how much more good could be done with 20% or even 25%. The military support by way of taking care of families of military personnel and taking care of veterans could be fueled dramatically by just a marginal increase in donations.
Used clothing is not something to be tossed aside as something with no other use. On average, every American will purchase 10 pounds of used clothing every year. This is not to mention the clothes and other objects that can be and are made from recycled fabrics and other textiles.
Our military support depends on the donations of others, and if you ask people if they care about military support and taking care of the poor, you would likely find that almost one hundred percent of the people you talk to want to support these charities. Many might think they have nothing to give at the moment. That they have no extra money and thus nothing to give. It is most likely the truth, however, that they have no idea just how much money they have in their closets disguised as clothing items they have that the no longer wear if they even wore them in the first place.
The charities that benefit from used clothing donations rely on donations every year from all around the country. If you are interested in helping, there are many different things you could do. You could first go into your on closets and see exactly what you need and want and what you would like to give away. After you have done that yourself, you could stage a clothing drive where your neighborhood could do the same with their own closets.
Every little bit helps, and with you and your neighborhood starting the awareness campaign, it will spread to others who wake up every day and look through tons of clothes they are no longer going to wear. Giving those clothes away changes lives in a very real and very practical way. The military support that comes from the money earned at thrift shops and used clothing stores, as well as the help it gives the poor among us, is needed every year. The amount we can give every year could go up by thousands of dollars just by looking through our own closets and helping others do the same. Sometimes we just need to know where to start.