In a silent moment, just as sleep was catching hold, my daughter opened her eyes and asked me, “Mom, is Santa real?” I told her the truth. There were some tears, but we talked about the beauty that remains in gifting, and she relaxed into her new found knowledge. As I lay next to her as she slept, I realized that the most distressing part of losing Santa is that many of her toys now had ceased to be part of a larger story. I had, single-handedly, de-mythologized her mountains of stuffed animals, her fairy house, her nesting boxes with “Be My Valentine” on them. She loved the idea that Santa wanted her to be his special someone. This left her feeling empty.
We all suffer from a deficit of stories in many areas of our lives, especially with our things. It is true that many suffer from profound scarcity of basic needs, but many people reading this article will recognize that, conversely, many also suffer from a surfeit of possessions, most of which lack meaning in our lives. Many of us work long hours at tedious jobs to afford things that we’ve been taught (by advertising and our culture of consumption) fills a void. That is a lie. The objects that fill our homes don’t fill voids or heal wounds. They create more voids, more responsibilities, and more pressure to accumulate.

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In 2010, our Transition Town group applied for (and received) 501(c)(3) status.
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Three years ago we started a Timebank
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About the same time, we started a Facebook-group focused on gifting, reselling, and swapping for our local community. Locals use the group to ask for, sell, and give things away. Think of it as a hyper-local Craigslist (with 900 members).
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In 2011, we began holding a “FreeMarket” one day a year. The Market was held every year on the heels of a community-wide garage sale, and served as a place to bring your unsold items instead of placing them curb-side for the trash pick-up.
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We held a well-attended book-reading group of Charles Eisenstein’s Sacred Economics two years ago. This book discusses gift-economics in some detail.

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All items would be free and available to anyone in the community.
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All staff would be volunteer, but paid in “timedollars.” This would in turn help the Timebank recruit new members.
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As a 501(c)(3) we could offer receipts to donors. This includes businesses who might want to cull inventory as a donation to us.
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A donation jar would be available at the Store.
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We would do a fund-raisers periodically and apply for grants.
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We would not compete with other charities. In fact we would donate to them when at all possible.
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All items have to be small enough to be carried in by the donor, and the donor would be responsible for putting items on the shelf. (“Self-Service in and Out”)
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We would have a space in the Store where people could sit and chat, and a significant area for children to play with toys.
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We would recycle responsibly any items that came to us that were not taken after a time.
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We would identify businesses/non-profits in town that could make use of donated items.
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We would identify populations that had significant need and outreach to them (churches, domestic abuse shelters, etc.)
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We would not pay to advertise.
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We would be transparent to our volunteers and to the public in our running of the Store, including finances and operations. This transparency would be created through an active FB-group open to the public.
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We would empower community members to create events around the idea of the Store, such as Fix-It Fests, reading groups, etc.


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The relationship that people have to “things” can become addictive and destructive. Hoarding behavior and obvious reselling behavior is divisive to the community, tolerated by some more than others. This led to division within the community about how to deal with these challenges to the “ethos” of the FreeStore, especially when the behavior is related to supporting suspected substance abuse.
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(Admittedly rare) behavior by visitors that sits outside the Store motto of “self-service in and out:” Customers demanding that volunteers be responsible for unloading their car, shelving items, or wrap/bag items for them. The FreeStore is very different from other retail stores, and we struggle with messaging this difference to our community, keeping in mind that some visitors may have physical limitations that demand such help sometimes.