Lovely Freecycle Stories

bargainbetty

I got rid of a small chest freezer. The lady who came to collect it had her son with her, maybe 13 years old. We chatted a bit while we got the freezer out to her car, and it emerged that she was setting up on her own after a 'bad' relationship (her unconscious touching of scars on her arms made me think of how bad it must have been). Her son was a very sweet-natured lad, and joked about how much they had managed to 'salvage' from the spare rooms of south east London. He said the only thing he missed about the old life was his Dad's weight training equipment. I promptly gave him the set of dumbbells and weights that I had been about to list, plus a few other items of gym equipment. His eyes absolutely shone. They came back five minutes later with a bunch of flowers for me. I'm about to list more furniture on there, in the hope that someone will find a good home for it!

heartbreak_star

What lovely stories

HBS x

minimacka

heartbreak_star wrote: »

What lovely stories

HBS x

I was just thinking the same thing :-)

Mands

Frugalbride wrote: »

Has anyone else had a good experience with Freecycle?

When the OH and I moved in together we ended up with duplicate kitchen things: two sets of saucepans, potato mashers, can openers etc. I sorted through, found two huge boxes of stuff and offered them on Freecycle, saying that whoever took them would need to collect by car.

When the collector arrived he was quite young, on foot and carrying a huge rucksack. I commented that he wouldn't be able to manage to carry the boxes (back to the Tube station) and he replied "just watch me!". We spent half an hour going to through the boxes, sorting out how best to pack it into the rucksack and him asking questions about stuff as we went.

"What's this then?" he said, picking up a cheese grater. I explained, he looked baffled but stuffed the grater into the rucksack. When it was all packed, and it must have weighed a fair bit, he tottered off.

That evening I got a text message. "Just cooked dinner ... had a jacket potato with GRATED cheese on top. Bloody brilliant!".

Mands

mollythewestie

A few years ago we had an old, but still working large, flat screen Dell computer monitor to get rid of.

We put it on ebay, stating clearly that it was a "collection only" item and it sold for a couple of pounds - I then get a message from the winning bidder saying can we send it to Poland :mad:

We mutually decided to cancel the transaction, and I then put it on Freecycle instead as I just wanted rid of it.
I had dozens of "I want" or "ring me" messages. But chose a lady who wrote a proper letter describing why she would like this particular item.
She arrived exactly on time and gave me a jar of home made jam in return - I was really touched.

I also gave away a child's highchair once and got a lovely thank you email afterwards saying how thrilled they were with it.

pimento

My (now 21 year old) son's baby clothes went to Kenya via Freecycle. A local woman was going out to volunteer at a maternity hospital and she divided the two bagfuls of clothes between her and her travelling companions so they would not be overweight on the plane.

Izadora

What a lovely thread!!
My mum bought a sparkly new fridge recently so was going to take the old one to the tip until my dad piped up with "but it still works!!!"
Pointing out to him that the house is massively overcrowded with clutter and it'd be better to get rid of it didn't work so I, ever so casually, dropped Freecycle into a conversation and I reckon that in a week or so he'll probably suggest it like it was his idea and isn't it great :-)

Frugalbride

What great stories! Sounds like the Freecycle community are a kind bunch, and good at heavy lifting it seems - trampolines, sofas, appliances...

tayforth

What a wonderful thread! Lots of lovely heartwarming stories, I'm welling up here. :A

rosie_78 wrote: »

A few years ago now my neighbour (sadly passed on now), decided to give up her deep fat fryer. I offered to put it on FC.

She was amazed at what the internet could do

Anyway, the person who wanted it was also elderly so I offered to drop it off. Took my neighbour with me as I was taking her shopping later that day.

The two met and became firm friends and started writing to eachother. When I had the time I'd take my neighbour to see her new friend (it was about a 40/50min round trip).

Lovely memories of seeing them so happy.

I've FC'd a lot of things, mostly dropping them off if it's someone who is elderly. The only time I've refused to hand over an item (bedside cabinets) is when I saw three sets in the lounge. I figured the person was selling them so took them away.

I do like looking at freecycle and for distraction make it into a game. I find the "wanteds" and see if I can match them up with offers. it's good fun

Aw, you're so kind!!!

rosalie-lavender

Our local freecycle had a man who helped people in difficulties. He posted that he was helping a young mum and her children who had moved into a house. They had nothing and were trying to set up home from scratch.
He posted a thanks later and said that the freecycle community had completely kitted the family out including toys and bikes for the children.