Better to give than receive—this stuff anyway.

I wish I could take out an advertisement in every church bulletin in the archdiocese with the following message:

Dear well-meaning person,

Please do not donate any clothing that you, yourself, would not want to be seen in. 

Also refrain from donating broken toys.  Thanks ever so much.

Sincerely,  Your Favorite Charity

Today, at the crisis pregnancy center where I volunteer, I sorted through yet another bag of donations that was largely useless.  The contents of the bag were as follows:

• Two boys’ shirts, size 6, in good condition.  By themselves, a fine donation.
• One boys’ Minnesota Twins jersey with MIENTKIEWICZ on the back.
• Two pairs of shoes in good condition.  Four pairs of badly beat-up shoes.
• Eight items of clothing with obvious holes, missing buttons, and/or stains.
• Three straps of nylon webbing.  (What were they thinking?  Someone might be able to use this as a belt.)
• One paper bag from Bath and Body Works.
• Two torn garbage bags.

There were also a few items that I assume were intended as toys.  They were:

• An old-fashioned plastic toy phone, the kind with a handset and a cord connecting to a base that had either buttons or a rotary dial on it.  It’s hard to tell, because this phone consisted only of the handset.
• A single interlocking block.  Think “lone Lego.”  Except that this one won’t actually connect with Lego brand interlocking blocks.
• A broken calculator.
• The plastic tube left over when the lollipop from one of these had already been eaten.

Honestly, what are people thinking?  That the local clothing shelf is their own personal garbage can?  Even one of the “good” shirts in there—the Mientkiewicz jersey—is a reject in disguise, since Mientkiewicz was traded to Boston in 2004.

A little respect for the people who use these services, please.  If you’re too good to wear that shirt, then so are they.

We kept the good-condition shoes and the shirts (even the Mientkiewicz one) and the rest went straight into the garbage.

And another thing:  If you’re going to donate clothing, please wash it first.  Especially if it reeks of cat pee or cigarette smoke.  Here’s a dirty little secret:  If it needs to be washed, it’ll probably get thrown away.  The crisis pregnancy center does not have a washer and dryer.  And—call us prudes—but we are reluctant to offer women dirty clothes to dress their babies in.

And another thing.  Donations of maternity clothes are great.  But XXXL clothing does not make good maternity clothes, except for XXXL women, and then only when the clothing is, in fact, maternity clothing.  I can’t count how many donations of size-26-or-larger not-maternity women’s clothes keep coming in.  The only explanation is that the donors think that this stuff is good for pregnant women.  I’ve been pregnant twice.   It’s not.  If you have extended size clothing to donate, please only send the maternity clothes to the maternity-clothes exchange.