Donations and the Red Cross

Not all clothes in Americans’ wardrobes are being worn, and every year, many millions of pounds of clothes are simply thrown into the trash and end up in landfills across the country, where they don’t do any good for anyone. However, charity foundations like the Red Cross exist to accept clothes donations and make sure that these donations end up in the hands of veterans and needy families who would be happy to accept them. If American households increase the rate at which they donate and curb the tossing of old clothes, charity rates could spike and many more needy families could be made more comfortable, and as a bonus, landfills would not be quite so full. To donate clothes to Red Cross is to take part in an American tradition of charity, and more charity is always welcome. When a person chooses to donate clothes to Red Cross, they can follow simple strategies to determine what clothes they keep, and what is to be given to Red Cross pickup sites or used clothing donations sites. How can this be done, and how often are clothes recycled as of now? Can even more be donated?

Recent Charity Rates

Plenty of Americans currently take part in donations drives, although more is always better, and this could ease the strain on landfills. Around the world, for example, over 14.3 million tons of donated American clothes and other textiles are shipped to families and people in need in many nations. It is estimated that 70% of Americans give to charity each year, and that often includes old clothes that they do not want anymore. As a bonus, nearly 3% of American income is also sent to charities, and every year, the American economy receives $666.1 billion from non-profits. And among high-worth donors, about 63% of them say that their chief motivation for giving is “giving back to the community,” and that is certainly one aspect of donations, such as the decision to donate clothes to Red Cross. The act to donate clothes to Red Cross is convenient for anyone across the nation, given how Red Cross operates 24 hours a day, every day of the year to receive donations and make sure that they end up in the hands of those that need them. How can a homeowner take part in this massive charity effort and make sure that they visit a clothing donation center to give away what they no longer want to wear?

How to Give

Many households have their items, such as clothes, scattered and mixed across the various rooms and furniture, and this can make it difficult to determine just how many items a household really has. So, when homeowners decide to start donating, they can take the first step of gathering each and every last piece of clothing they have and assembling them all into a pile on the floor to create a comprehensive inventory. Shoes, hats, gloves, shirts, pants, dresses, and anything and everything can go into this pile, and some homeowners may be surprised by the sheer size and the contents of this pile.

Now, the members of the charitable household can carefully sort through these clothing items and decide what they really want to keep, and what they can donate instead. Many of the clothes to be donated will be out of fashion, worn out, the wrong size, or simply a piece of clothing that the owner no longer feels happy to wear. All these unwanted clothes can be gathered into boxes and bags for easy transport, while all clothes to be kept can be put back in closets and dressers. A household with a very large clothes inventory may end up donating more than half of what they have.

To donate clothes to Red Cross, a person will have all clothes to give away packed into boxes and bags, and now the donor can look up local Red Cross pickup sites and get their names and addresses, and driving directions if needed. The donor can then simply drive all their boxes or bags of clothes and give them to the staff on site, and follow any other directions that the site staff might have. Clothes donations of a sufficient amount may even be tax-deductible, an attractive bonus for donors.