Social Network Encourages Recycling

Check your closets, cupboards, garages and home offices. You might be surprised at what you find: old clothing you no longer wear, extra household items, or even old computer thumbnail flash drives taking up space in a drawer. 

These items may be obsolete to you, but for others in the community – especially people on fixed incomes – these items may be of real value and use. But the trick is finding out who needs specific items and how to share them. 

That’s where the Roonga nonprofit network can help. 

The Cupertino-based startup is an online private social network for trusted sharing among individual users or selected groups. Co-founder Evelyn Horng says the site’s mission is to encourage people to share physical goods within a local community. Reusing items instead of throwing them out also helps reduce landfill waste. 

On its website, Roonga explains that it’s different from larger web-based social pages like Craigslist or Freecycle because its users share their content only with trusted parties in a particular network. Roonga users can sell or give away items, but also can lend or rent them with confidence knowing that borrowers are in a trusted network. 

Horng says one of the company’s key initiatives is to facilitate in-kind donations to nonprofit organizations. She says the company is working with a select group of non-profits by allowing them to post their in-kind needs to followers on the Roonga site. Users can “follow” a non-profit company by clicking a single button on the Roonga site. When the non-profit posts a need, a notice is sent to all the followers. 

West Valley Community Services is one of the first nonprofit agencies to partner with Roonga. The organization provides basic needs, family support and housing services in Cupertino, Los Gatos, Monte Sereno, Saratoga, West San Jose and other nearby communities. 

Among other local agencies using Roonga are Career Closet, Family Supportive Housing, and Sunnyvale Community Services. 

For details, visit the Roonga website at www.roonga.com.

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