If you have ever strolled through your neighborhood on trash night you may have noticed piles of what seem to be perfectly useful items awaiting the arrival of those people who make our trash magically disappear. Or perhaps you happen to be walking through your local shopping locale and noticed a package a little crumbled, maybe even ripped open exposing the item inside to the damaging elements of the world outside of cellophane. Nine times out of ten that item will end up in the trash, obviously unfit for human consumption, or perhaps just unprofitable to the corporate entity making it available for your consumerist desires.

Now lets talk about those consumerist desires. Most of us have been brainwashed to believe new is better. I mean, who doesn’t want something shiny and bright and clean and smells like new plastic or glass or some far off factory where neat brown people make products for us. Essentially our country’s economic standing rest solely on the idea that you will buy stuff and continue to buy stuff until the end of time. So that brings up a dilemma. Once we buy something that means our need for that thing is taken care of thus causing us to not want to buy it again. Considering our whole economic existence depends on us continuing to buy, there has to be a way to make us want to buy that item we already have again and again and again. The solution is marketing. Now this isn’t just any marketing like advertising of a product saying hey we got this product and we think you will like it, but marketing that takes every fear and insecurity you may have and manipulates it to the point that you feel without this product you are nothing. Bingo! So the problem is solved. The consumerist cycle can be maintained by making you feel like you are un-cool, fat, ugly, un-hip, stupid, un-cultured, poor, unwanted, undesired, and so on and having this product will cure all of that and get you laid at the same time.

Ok. So we can rest assure our economic security is safe. But we have another problem, what do we do with all that stuff we have once we buy the new stuff? Well, some of us who feel guilty for having too much stuff feel that donating those items to places like Goodwill and Salvation Army will help out those in need while ridding our guilty conscious of constantly giving in to our consumerist desires. Others of us either don’t care or are just too lazy to make any effort to recycle our unwanted goods so we simply toss them into the trash to be taken to that place where all of our waste magically disappears in a field of flowers and happy fluffy bunnies. I mean, since we keep producing, buying and throwing out stuff, clearly we have an unlimited amount of resources and the earth can withstand our consumption indefinitely.

Anyway, since the people who just don’t care or are too lazy to make a conscious effort to reduce the amount of waste they produce aren’t worth talking about let’s get back to the donating of items. So you take your stuff to Goodwill or the Salvation Army. Well, the Goodwill and the Salvation Army need to turn a profit. They have a huge organization to keep up and they do that by selling the goods you provide them for free at a price some would say is a little exuberant. So here someone can buy a pair of old jeans for $5, as opposed to going to say JC Penny and getting a pair of jeans for $20. If items sit around and people just aren’t putting out $5 for those jeans, they get taken off the rack and thrown out in the garbage, regardless of their usefulness. Sometimes these places get so many donations they don’t have the space to keep them all or the people to go through and sort them. Then the items get thrown in the garbage without the chance for them to be sold back into the community. More often than not this happens at an alarming rate thus sending many useful items many people need for survival to that place where things magically turn into flowers and fluffy bunnies.

So what to do?

Well, you could stop consuming. But then our entire economic existence might collapse and perhaps that would be a bad thing, unless we have a system in place to support the after effects. I guess you could also quit relying on the evils of modernization and start wearing tree bark and depending upon the land around you for survival. Ok, that’s cool if you can do that. But I am going to guess most of us are so dependent and comfortable with a few of the modern comforts we have that we would be quite hesitant to start stuffing our bedding with straw and grass. So what is the next best thing? Well, why not take those items you have left over and give them to people who need them. By this I mean not give them to an organization that is going to turn around and sell them for a profit to help sustain their existence, but provide them directly to communities who need them absolutely free of charge.

Crazy you say?

People will go mad with greed, take everything in site, take things they don’t need. It will be mayhem, madness; I mean how will people respect anything if they don’t have to pay for it, to work for it, the American way!

Well surprisingly enough you may find that people, even those scary poor people, have the ability to self regulate and interact in civil ways even in the face of all your free junk. Well I say junk lightly here, because what might be junk to you and me might just be what keeps someone else warm that night, or helps to make their home a little more homely, or puts a smile upon a child’s face.

So here I get to the point of this entire story.

On Saturday December 18 around a dozen volunteers helped to make providing free items to people who need them a reality. The Baltimore Free Store set up shop at the All Peoples Congress building located at 426 East 31st street. From 10am to 4pm over 120 people came in, browsed the items, had conversations while trying on clothes, got excited when they saw something that appealed to them, filled their bags with what they needed and then went on their way. They left with a smile, a thank you, and many times a bless you, though I wish god would have stayed out of it.

Over two months of planning, collecting items through donations, and digging through the bowels of dumpsters near and far produced enough items to fill up the All Peoples Congress space and keep people leaving with full bags for over six hours. None of it would have been possible without the hard work of people who volunteered their time to staff the Free Store throughout the day, flyer in the week leading up to the event and help to collect items.

Saturday was just the beginning with the next Free Store being planned for January 29. Plans are also being laid out for a permanent Free Store existence in Baltimore, providing a storefront and location for donations.

If you would like to get involved, volunteer, or have items to donate, please contact us at baltimorefreestore-AT-yahoo.com. Donations are accepted at 6007 York Road by appointment only. We cannot take any furniture at this time, but will take pretty much anything else so long as you feel someone else would have use for it. Get in touch with us and set up a time to drop items off. Do your part, curb a little consumption, give capitalism that little kick in the gut and help to keep useful products in circulation and in the hands of people who need them.