Once Upon a Child and Freecycle

I have finally gotten around to the enormous task of sorting and getting rid of all of my daughters' baby and toddler clothes.  I've mainly used freecycle (www.freecycle.org) to pass these items onto families who could use them and keep them out of the waste stream.  Freecycle, if you've never used it, is a really great organization that allows people to give away just about any item (except for food) to anyone who is interested and willing to pick up.  Clothes are generally something that is easy to give away to friends and family or a charity but there are often lots of things that you are not really sure who would want them that usually ultimately end up in the trash.  Freecycle helps you find a recipient for these items.  Based on my observations, just about anything that is offered eventually finds a home.  Freecycle is also a great place to find something you might want for free.  Everything that I have given away I have left on my porch so there is no actual face to face interaction with the person picking up.  They don't need to come into your house or speak with you so it feels a little bit safer than something like craigslist.

We did have a few things that were a bit nicer that I wanted to try to get a little money for such as fancy holiday dresses and winter coats.  We decided to take them to the store Once Upon a Child.  There are multiple locations of this store throughout the suburbs with the closest one for us located at 4616 N. Harlem in Harwood Heights.  For other store locations and hours check their website www.onceuponachild.com.  When we walked into the store we were immediately directed to the drop off location where I filled out a form and someone took our box to sort through.  We were there around lunch time on a Saturday and were told it would take about 30 minutes to look at the clothing we had brought.  They staff said we could either look around the store during that time or that would give us a call when they were done.  The girls had a really good time browsing in the store especially in the toy section.  We had to remind them that we were there to get rid of stuff not add more to our house.  Most of the items in the store seemed to be in pretty good condition.  In addition to clothes and toys, Once Upon a Child also buys and sells a wide assortment of baby gear, shoes, and books.  When we were there they had a large number of Halloween costumes for sale. 

From our box that we brought in, the store bought about half of the stuff for about $36.  We were satisfied.  It ended up being more money that we thought we would get and definitely more than we would have gotten for that stuff at a garage sale.