Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Transforming A Woman By Recycling Fabric

"Ellen" blew me away as I walked into her apartment. Not only did she work to clean up and organize an area in her living room on her own, she just looked amazing. WOW!

"You make me want to live better," Ellen said to me.

I was beside myself. To impact a person's life in such a way is stunning.

Ellen went on to say that she has not felt this wonderful about herself in years. She knows there is a lot of work to be done in her home. Seeing the progress made in the short time we have worked, encourages her to keep going:
"I can visualize what my home will look like soon!"

Ellen loved to sew, making quilts was her favorite craft. She had a HUGE collection of fabric. The majority were scraps. Her daughter's friend is taking the nicer items, the rest we are donating. The boxes in the before pictures are filled with fabric.

Most of the donations will be taken to Goodwill. I met with the local Toledo director and learned that they love scrap clothing. It might not be be placed in their stores, but your the old white shirt with red wine stained all over it will be sold to a bulk fabric shredder who will recycle it.

How cool it that?
These five bags of fabric will be shredded and made into who knows what. Scrap fabric recycled into something useful rather than buried in a landfill, and Goodwill earns a bit of money toward education and training people looking for work.

Ellen is happy her fabric collection is not going to be just tossed without any value:

"I touched every piece of this fabric, each piece means something to me. It's good to know that all of this is not going to be wasted."

What recycling tip have you found recently?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Recycling is amazing. I had no clue Goodwill would do that! I guess when I'm done with my sewing endeavor for my new blankets (made from old t-shirts I just can't bear to get rid of completely) I'll have to take them there.

I've learned you can use water bottles and stuff over and over again. It's better to get a filter for your sink, I know, but I get Arrowhead water in the 2 gallon things and just refill my water bottle over and over.

Also, if you don't get recycling pick up, you should still take your recyclables to a recycling station...I just found out you can get "recycled" carpet...and there's actually plastic bottles in it....yet it's really soft!

Techietami said...

You may have mentioned it here before but Freecycle is a great way to get rid of stuff you don't need and yet keep it out of the landfills. You can offer an item you don't want any more and people can email you and arrange to get it. No pets are allowed and you cannot charge for the item. Check out www.freecycle.org.