The Give Back Box

During this busy Holiday season many of us are enjoying sending and receiving packages! We order the perfect gift or the special surprise and wait for the delivery crew to ring the bell so we can quickly tuck it away unseen.

Did you know that the box your package comes in can be used to donate to Goodwill at no cost to you? It's called the "Give Back Box" and all you have to do is go online to Givebackbox.com to print a label! You just fill the box and put on the label for a local delivery carrier to pick up.

Do you ever feel like you are drowning in stuff? My closets are full of my children’s outgrown clothing and toys. Whether you are looking to simplify your life, downsize before a move or find a home for your unused items, there’s never a bad time to clear the clutter out of your home or garage or to do a wardrobe purge. When you donate your stuff to Goodwill, you donated items help fund job placement, onsite and virtual skills training and education assistance for people directly in your community. That’s cleaning with a purpose.

Goodwill has a great campaign called “Donate Stuff. Create Jobs” which you can learn more about here: http://www.goodwill.org/donate-and-shop/donate-stuff/. And now they are partnering with the Givebackbox.com to repurpose the shipping boxes you may be using on a regular basis.

Thanks to the job training programs made possible by donations of clothes and household items, Goodwill helped place more than 312,000 in jobs in the United States and Canada in 2015 – that’s one person finding a job every 23 seconds of every business day. So you’re literally donating your stuff AND helping to create jobs.

You can even calculate how much your donation helps your local community by using Goodwill’s Donation Impact Calculator, a feature available within the Goodwill Locator App available for Android and iOS devices and at www.Goodwill.org (click “Explore Our Map” on the homepage). Simply input the items you’re donating to calculate the number of hours of career counseling, on-the-job training, résumé preparation, financial planning classes, and other services you’ve helped provide people facing challenges finding employment.

So when you shop online this holiday season, many major retailers will send your purchase in a “Give Back Box,” which will enable you to donate items to your local Goodwill at no cost to you. This program gives every cardboard box a second life to help people in need. Visit GiveBackBox.com for more information about the Give Back Box. Make your purchases go even farther to help during this season of giving.