In Praise of Charity

As many of my readers are aware, I spend two days a week working at the distribution warehouse for our local hospice.  As part of a team of seven or eight, my time is spent trying to sell books, CDs and DVDs on line, just one strand in a complex body that, in conjunction with a chain of a dozen or so high street shops is focused solely on raising funds to help run the hospice, which serves a wide area across parts of two or three counties.

Our small team is comprised totally of volunteers, which means that what we raise is almost entirely cost-free and virtually all of that amount - several thousand pounds in a year - goes to the important work of the hospice itself.  We are the last level of attack before these items leave our hands.  Before they come to us, they are scrutinised by knowledgeable connoisseurs, who are able to divert rare or collectable items into channels where the most money can be made.  Next, items are offered to the shops, and displayed for sale to customers on the high street.  What can't be sold in a reasonable time is returned to the warehouse, either to go to a different shop for a while, or to come to us.  What we are unable to sell is disposed of for recycling; nothing is wasted.

One of the bonuses to someone like me of working in this system is that my tastes don't mirror the average and often I find something that can't be sold is of interest to me, which means that I can buy it at a price just a fraction higher than what would be offered on line if those organisations had been interested.  I've lost count of the number of things I've obtained in that way over the last three years.

Charity is not confined to charitable organisations (like the hospice), of course.  The word derives its origin from the Latin caritas, meaning love, and love comes in a variety of shapes and guises (Groan! - sorry for the pun there.)  One demonstration of love is giving something without the anticipation of either reward or something in return.  And giving something under such terms to someone completely unknown is the basic premise on which is founded an operation formerly known as Freecycle ... passing on something unwanted to someone who can use it, instead of dumping it and letting it end up as landfill.  Freecycle has now been merged with another similar operation and is found on line under the name 'Trash Nothing' (www.trashnothing.com).

I been a follower of this operation for ten years or so, I think and, as with the hospice warehouse, I've lost track of the number of ways I've benefited, from two replacement desks to a number of laptop bags, to a drawer-divan to a complete set of bed linen ... and all for the simple outlay of the fuel to collect  them!  As an illustration, take the history of the desk I'm sitting at as I type this blog.

When I moved here twenty years ago a desk - considered to be essential to my way of life - was bought from a second-hand shop.  After a number of years, I decided that it took up too much space in my room, so I 'disposed of it' on Freecycle, and in the same way obtained a standard 'computer desk', which I quickly realised was too small for my needs.  This I offered on Freecycle and the offer led to an exchange of e-mails with a young lady in the next town, the result of which was an exchange favourable to us both.  She got the computer desk, which fitted the 'bedroom-study' she occupied in her parents' house, and I gained a proper desk that was smaller than the one I'd disposed of just weeks before.

A few years later, another furniture reshuffle led me to realise that I could easily survive without a proper desk, provided I had a 'pedestal': a set of drawers on top of which I could place my printer.  A pedestal happened then to be available at the warehouse for a small outlay and I could then dispose of the desk.  This done, I set up my laptop on a side table that I'd had all along and realised was under-utilised thereunto.  

And that's how things stayed until about two months ago, when I spotted (on Freecycle again) a 'desk-top'.  I was inspired to go and look at it.  It was, as described, a bit scruffy on top, having suffered some kind of paint spillage, but the underside - apart from a score of screw holes where the legs had been fitted - was immaculate!  It now sits astride the pedestal and the side-table (with an unseen sliver of hardboard levelling up the slight difference in their heights) and I now have a desk-sized desk, without the usual encroachment on my room-space, and still absorbing the space that the side-table would require!

As a footnote ... one afternoon this week I was privileged to enjoy the loving offer of another local gent.  He had posted 'Llyfrau Cymraeg' (which, as we all know, means 'Welsh books').  As a lover of books and a student of Welsh, how could I refuse?  I collected a neat box containing no less than sixteen volumes of various sizes, some about Wales, some in Welsh, some virtually new, some old and well-thumbed, some fictional, some grammatical aids to learning the language.  What could be so useful, and on so broad a front?  I told him my sincere 'Diolch yn fawr' and hurried home to explore my great good fortune.