The holidays are approaching, and a lot of people are thinking about ways they can give to the needy in their communities — and ways they can clear out space in the closet to make room for the imminent influx of gifts. Giving to your local thrift store can be a great way to do both at the same time.

The question is, what to give? Is your aunt's old chair (the one your cat sleeps on every night) going to be a great little vintage find for someone on a budget? Or is it just going to get transferred from the donation bin to a dumpster — where it will cost the thrift store money to dispose of it? At what point are you helping out, and at what point are you just using a local charity as a convenient dumping ground for your crud?

A lot of the advice I hear about what to give, and what not to give, is well-intentioned, but it's rarely informed by the experience of the people who actually rely on thrift stores to keep their closets stocked and their budgets balanced.

People like me. I grew up in a family of eight, and I'm now a mother of seven. Money is usually pretty tight. I don't think I've bought a piece of clothing retail in, like, 15 years. If the cheapest place I could get kids’ clothes were Walmart, my children would be running around in old feed sacks. If I had to buy furniture from Ikea, we'd be eating off the floor. So thrift stores make it possible for me to acquire the necessities that my large family needs.

Poverty is in the eye of the beholder

One guideline I often hear is “Don't give it away if you wouldn't be willing to use it yourself.”

I have two problems with this. First, the wealthiest people (who have the nicest stuff to donate) will also tend to have the highest standards for what degree of wear and tear is acceptable. I lived for a year with a girl who was upper middle class, and one day she took my daughter and bought her a pair of new rain boots because she couldn’t imagine that anyone would wear worn shoes. Half the stuff she threw out was, to my eyes, in mint condition.

Second, it assumes that poor people feel the same way about used goods that wealthier people do. This is something I see a lot: people who get all sentimental about how important it is for a child to open their toys on Christmas and find something that’s in its original packaging. Or people who think it must somehow make the poor feel subhuman to eat food with a torn label or a dinged box.

This is largely projection: middle-class people imagining what it would be like for them if they dropped a rung or two on the social ladder. If you've spent your life buying name brands, shopping retail, always having reasonably fashionable clothing and being able to afford the newest things, the idea of having to make do with less can be daunting.

I once encountered a well-dressed woman hovering near the store-brand diapers in the baby aisle of the local grocery store. She was obviously embarrassed, in a state of paralysis, looking back and forth between the price tag and her sleeping infant. I walked up and grabbed a pack off the shelf. “Do they work?” she asked in a hushed tone. “I mean, they don't give the baby a rash or anything?” I assured her that they worked just fine. She hastily slipped a pack into her cart and made good her escape.

Clearly, for that woman, having to scruple over the cost of diapers was a real cause of shame and anxiety. But if you never buy name-brand diapers (except that one time when they were really on sale because a box cutter slipped and damaged the package), it never occurs to you that buying cheap diapers might somehow make you a bad mother. You save your shame and anxiety for the days when you're not sure there's enough in your account for the on-sale diapers to go through at checkout.

It's the same thing with secondhand goods. A lot of people who have never shopped thrift feel like it would be shameful, or even gross, to have to wear clothes that used to belong to someone else. I don't know whether the problem is that thrift store goods are pretty much guaranteed to be last season's fashion at best, or whether it's that the previous owner might have had cooties. In any case, I don't feel that way. I've been shopping at thrift stores and liquidators all my life, and it just seems weird to me that people believe stuff is supposed to come in pristine packaging with tags on.

I will use your junk

Let me be frank: If you donate to thrift stores, I really appreciate your old stuff. I even appreciate some things that are, well, junk. Snack containers, for example. A lot of people I know have cupboards full of these things but wouldn't consider them worth giving away. After all, they're only a couple of bucks if you buy them at the grocery store, right?

But when money is tight, a couple of bucks can mean the difference between buying real juice or buying flavored sugar water. A couple of bucks can cover breakfast for two days. Multiply the cost of a brand new sandwich saver by seven, and you have enough to pay for a chicken dinner. So unless I can get Tupperware for 50 cents at the Salvation Army, my kids just have to eat smooshed sandwiches.

Another example: Junk for sale at thrift stores lets my kids shop for treasures without breaking the bank. I usually give each of them a few quarters to spend when we go out. As all parents know, small children just love to shop. They fall in love with random objects, and if they can pick something up off a shelf, pay for it with their own money, and take it home, it makes them feel like a million bucks. It doesn't matter if it's just a cheaply made ladybug sprinkler or an ugly plastic rose that lights up in water. Little kids don't care. Most likely it will still end up in the garbage sooner rather than later, but why not let it bring joy to one more person on the way out?

There are some things you shouldn’t donate

Obviously, this doesn't mean that you should throw literal garbage in the donations box. Most of my kids, especially the little ones, don't care if their stuff has been used, but nobody wants their children to look like they've just climbed out of the bottom of a barrel. When I'm getting rid of old clothes, I always sort through them first: If it's torn, or stained, or so worn-out that it's see-through, nobody wants it.

Getting rid of trash donations can cost thrift stores money in garbage fees and makes extra work for volunteers. Dumping your drawers out into a box and expecting someone else to deal with it is not generous or environmentally conscious; it's just inconsiderate. When possible, it's polite to clean things before donating them, and always make sure they are a type of good that is actually useful to the store you're donating to. Most places will have a sign posted near the donations box stating what they do and do not accept. With large items, you should always have them checked out by a store employee before dropping them off, because removing them can be costly.

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That said, stuff definitely does not need to be in premium condition. It’s actually fairly important for the thrift store shelves to have some stuff on them that is, well, kind of shoddy-looking. Why? Because kids who are shopping in thrift stores are doing the same kind of comparisons that kids shopping in retail stores are making. They don’t want the ugliest, crummiest thing on the rack. If you have a few pairs of old, ugly boots sitting next to the ones that are used but still in reasonable condition, it makes the kids feel like they’ve gotten something nice.

It also allows a child to have some selection. Some kids are really conscious about their clothes looking new, but some could not care less. To my youngest son, it’s much more important that his clothes make him feel like Doctor Who or Spider-Man than that they be in perfect condition. My 7-year-old daughter routinely rejects really good-quality, like-new clothing because she doesn’t like the color — but she’ll be happy as a clam with stuff that’s kind of worn provided it’s the perfect hue.

The problem with luxury donations

Another piece of advice that I've heard circling is to give “good stuff.” That is, don't just donate your junk — also give away some items that are really top quality so that poor people can also have nice things. This is one of those ideas that sounds just lovely on paper but is more complicated in practice.

You see, not everyone who shops thrift is struggling to make ends meet. Some people who can afford retail go to thrift stores because they just love a bargain. These people actually form a really important part of the secondhand economy because they're willing to pay much more than I can afford for a nice antique dresser or a designer suit, just so long as they're getting a deal. Thrift stores take advantage of this to increase profits. That's actually a very good thing: It allows the store to pay their overhead and still sell me children's socks for a quarter.

It's just not a great way to give nice stuff to poor people. So say you've got a fabulous pair of skinny jeans that you bought at the beginning of an ill-fated crash diet. You know they have to go. To console yourself, you're imagining a low-income teen reading the label, clutching them to her chest, and jumping up and down with glee because she never even imagined being able to own anything so cool. If that's important to you, maybe consider donating to a Christmas hamper program or a youth shelter where they'll be given directly to someone who will love them.

You might also consider giving your best donatables to organizations that provide outfits specifically for cases where shabby clothes can be a liability. Wearing clothes that are a bit scruffy is usually no big deal if you're used to it. But what if you have to go for a job interview? Or your child is attending prom? Or you have to appear in court?

These are situations where the right clothes can actually make a difference in someone's life. So if you have formalwear or business attire that you're looking to rehome, maybe consider a charity like Operation Prom, Dress for Success, Career Gear, or a local equivalent.

Wherever and whatever you choose to give this Christmas, the most important thing is to make other people's lives a little better. Thinking a bit about how your donations will be used, and who could benefit from them most, can increase your power to do good with all of the old junk that's cluttering up your space.

And from my family and me, thanks.

Melinda Selmys is a writer and mother of seven living in rural Ontario, Canada. She blogs at Patheos.

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