Secondhand

All my life I have given things away to charity. Old clothes go into a big bag for the local mission store. Used backpacks get put in the donation bin. Books are put in a box headed for Africa. Out-grown bikes and roller skates are passed down to the next generation. I have always lived in and around a culture of giving away instead of throwing away.

Did you catch that last part? Throw away stuff. Yeah. All of that stuff that I have ‘given’ away I didn’t want or need anymore anyway. It had no value to me, and I needed the space, so I got rid of it. Sure, I recycled instead of filling the trash bin, and someone else can benefit from my castoffs.

But have you ever thought about what the people who receive secondhand things feel like? How depressing would it be to live your life only getting other people’s leftovers. What value would you place on your life if the clothes on your back and the shoes on your feet were things that someone else no longer wanted or needed. In other words, the things they could have just thrown away.

Don’t read this wrong, re-using stuff, and using secondhand stuff, isn’t a bad thing. I donate to thrift stores, and then turn around and shop there just for a change in my wardrobe. But I can also go and buy new things when I want to. I get gifts and Christmas and my birthday of shiny new presents. Things that were bought for a higher prices, things of value.

We need to make sure that no one lives a completely secondhand life. There is no reason to be proud of our generosity when we merely donate used items. Taking an extra five minutes to detour to the donation center is nothing. It’s what we should do, but it doesn’t count as going that extra mile. And while it might help someone get the physical items they need, it can’t help their self esteem.

There is a movie called Freedom Writers where a teacher saw that her students (who were all expected to fail and drop out) only got the used, beat-up old books and the A students got the shiny new ones, she was infuriated. She went out and bought her students new books, and the simple act of receiving something new made a difference in their self-esteem and their attitude toward class.

When we give things away, what value do we place on those objects? How does that reflect the value we assign the people who receive our donations? I’m not saying you should stop donating old clothes and stuff. But couldn’t you be doing something more?

How often do we really give away something of value? I have donated loads of items, clothes, books, pots and pans and furniture, but I have rarely bought something valuable just to give it away. What if I changed tactics? What if, instead of buying myself a new shirt and donating the old one, I kept the old one a little longer and bought the new shirt for someone in need? What if I actually went to meet the person who received the donation, made a friend, built a relationship? Because we can’t help people by just giving stuff away, new or used. We help people by becoming involved in their lives.