It’s one thing to sort through your stuff to decide what to keep and what to purge. But it’s another thing altogether to send the purged stuff on to its final destination, be it donating, reselling, or giving to friends. (Trashing should be your last resort, only if something is damaged or dirty.)
It’s a shame when you’ve worked so hard to relegate piles of stuff to leave the house, only to have bags and boxes languish by the door for months on end...
We just discovered a resource called Got Books that services the greater Boston area. We haven’t personally used them yet, but the gist is this: for free, they PICK UP your used books (and videos, CDs, DVDS), whether you have one box or a hundred boxes of books, and then donate them to the most appropriate destination (schools, local charities, etc.).
Through our organizing and redesign business, we’ve noticed that the best of intentions to get donations to a very specific charity or resource often greatly delays the process of getting the stuff out of the house at all. So if your books have been loitering, as you wait to get them to the “perfect” destination, try Got Books! (978.396.6025)
It may be counterproductive to your purging process, but for the sake of full disclosure, we should also let you know that Got Books hosts a huge weekly $1 per book sale at their Lawrence, MA warehouse to raise more money for local charities and to support their operating costs.
Have you experienced donation-piles-by-the-door-syndrome? Has anyone used Got Books?
(We liked and snagged the opening photo from the City of Minnetrista, Minnesota website of all places!)
Kyle Freeman for AT Boston
© 2009 Apartment Therapy
I have used Got Books, both to donate to and to buy from. A great thing about them is that you can donate any book, even its some obscure out of date textbook. If they can not resell it at their warehouse, they donate it, if it's not suitable for donation they recycle it! Nothing gets wasted.
view Splaine's profile
sigh, yes, donation-piles-by-the-door-syndrome... maybe to be addressed this weekend...
view Louisa's profile
From the Boston Globe
Charity begins at home for this bookseller
By Alex Beam
Globe Columnist / May 17, 2008
"You think you're giving to charity, and he does support some charities, but you're really giving to his profit. It's a way of promoting his business."
THIS IS NOT the best way to DONATE your books.
view EraserGirl's profile
I had two clear plastic boxes that sat by the door for months. One with random stuff to give to goodwill and one for books to sell to the used bookstore. When I realized they'd become an impromptu landing strip I finally took them out.
There are a lot of people who will take your old stuff and are rather vague about what happens to it. There's a giant bin to donate old clothes in the basement of my apartment building. The logo and advertising give the idea that it could be for charity, but I think it's actually one of those companies that sell old clothes to third world countries.
view lurker2209's profile
I have used booksforsoldiers.com which allows troops to post requests and then you see if you have anything that matches up. That is nice because they get what they really want/need and sometimes people will fill other requests, like socks, toiletries, etc. It's just the trip to the post office that keeps me from doing this more often. (Flat rate boxes keep shipping costs down).
view swbird's profile
i have a box of books in the garage, 2 bags by my front door ....and i want to empty out a book-filled cabinet in my living room area to make room for liquor for parties. i have had these books for years, haven't read them, and i keep buying more books....
i need to let go of these!!! i don't know of any charitable organizations like Got Books in NY/NJ area, so i'll just bring these to the local library. I hope they take them.
lurker2209, what makes you suspect that is what happens with the clothes donated from your bldg?
view little flower's profile
Try donating to your local library branch. Then, you can always borrow your books if you ever want to read them again.
view greer's profile
My local library takes donations as well for their yearly used book sale. The proceeds from the sale go to help fund library programs, and I get a tax-deduction as well so it is a win-win in my opinion.
This GotBooks service sounded great, but the article posted above would make me leery of using them if I still lived in Boston.
view smileydq's profile
(In Canada, don't know elsewhere...), schools or teachers always take donations. If he books/magazines are age appropriate and in good condition, they will take them. It's a good way to make kids (and teachers) happy!
view Emmm's profile
Is Boston ever going to have it's own page or is it going to be on the NY page for good?
view anne's profile