Garbage In, Gold Out: How Clutter Can Help Others

If all that glitters is not gold, then all that clutters is not necessarily junk. Sometimes, it can help others while also teaching an important lesson. That’s what I learned recently after enlisting my five-year-old to help out with our family garage sale.

It all began two years ago when I’d stumbled upon a garage sale held by two young kids and their dad. My preschoolers were eager to get their little hands on some new toys so I stopped and quickly loaded the stroller with some items. While I was paying for our purchases, I struck up a conversation with the father. He’d told me that all the money raised was going to Sick Kids, and that his kids (one of whom had been a Sick Kids patient) had managed the entire sale. I commended the children on their initiative and then happily continued on my day with my two giddy boys.

At the time, I didn’t realize that a seed had been planted in my head. One of my sons, too, had been lucky enough to get remarkable care at Sick Kids when he was an infant. And, while my husband and I donated every year to the Sick Kids Foundation, I wanted to ensure that my sons understood the concepts of selflessness and, at a basic level, philanthropy.

So, when I held a garage sale last spring to unload some of my household clutter, I decided to get my five-year-old son to help. I reminded him about the garage sale we’d visited when he was younger and explained that we too could hold a sale and donate the proceeds to Sick Kids. To pique his interest further, I suggested that he could hold a lemonade stand at the sale to raise even more money. The event was a great success, with my son expertly hustling the neighbours to purchase some of his lemonade. A few weeks later, my husband and I took our son to Sick Kids to personally deliver the money we’d raised. While there, we proudly took photos of him with the certificate of appreciation he received from the hospital.

Three months later, my son learned about Terry Fox’s heroism in his kindergarten class in conjunction with a run that the school was hosting as a fundraiser for cancer research. My son and I discussed that while Terry Fox embodied heroism on a big scale, even small acts of kindness (such as our garage sale/lemonade stand fundraiser) can make you a hero. After casually sharing this discussion with my son’s teachers, they invited him to share his fundraising experience with his classmates. I was told that afterwards there was a buzz in the classroom about all the lemonade stands the kids were planning to hold for charity next summer.

What had started out as one family’s personal act of giving back had, unknown to them, grown exponentially and had inspired other children to follow suit. And it all started with some clutter.

To learn more about how you can turn your “clutter into kindness”, check out the video below from a renowned decluttering expert, Peter Walsh.

For a list of where to donate your gently used items in Toronto, check out this great list compiled by Beautifully Organized, a local service that helps people better organize their homes.