Ol' School Recycling

Before Al Gore made it cool to want a cooler planet, and long before our offices and city government encouraged us to recycle our bottles, cans and paper, a company headquartered just across Virginia's Potomac River Maryland border in Rockville, was going about the business of recycling what others didn't want into good stuff and good jobs.

I'm talking about Goodwill Industries, which celebrates Goodwill Industries Week May 3-9.

For more than 100 years, Goodwill has collected our out of style shirts, last decade's furniture and books we couldn't stand to read again, or never read in the first place and sold them to people who thought otherwise. 

For every shirt, double-breasted, wide lapel suit, or those awful peasant skirts (yeah, you know the ones) not tossed into the garbage can and trucked off to clog a landfill, someone at Goodwill washed, pressed and sold those clothes and took another step toward work and financial independence.

Because just like when we recycle plastic, aluminum, paper -- all kinds of stuff, we are taking care of the planet that supports us, donating lightly used but unwanted other stuff to Goodwill is action that helps another person.

According to the company, there are more than 2,000 Goodwill stores around the U.S. and the world. There's one in Sterling, another in Arlington, and a huge store in Richmond. Oh, yeah, Richmond also is where one of the company's largest employment centers is located. 

Goodwill is a major job skills trainer, a part of its mission that most of us don't realize. Goodwill is a recycler of lives, turning bad luck in the past into good fortune for the future. Check out one of their success stories. 

A few months ago my son was in a local high school play and a cast-mate needed a denim jacket for a role. Instead of spending $45 or more on a new jacket that would be worn a few times and tossed to the ground after each act, I drove over to the Sterling Goodwill and picked up a jacket for $5. Fit nicely, did the job and until now, no one knew that it had been recycled. That's the beauty of Goodwill. It's stuff isn't ripped up and abused.

Before I discovered the Goodwill store in Sterling, I drove twenty or so miles to the store in Arlington, right on Glebe Road a little bit from where it crosses Rt. 50. I've purchased Dora the Explorer VHS tapes and a even got a first edition Spenser novel. Now that my daughter is more into iCarly than Boots and Swiper, the Dora tapes are back in the store, and Spenser is on my book shelf beside Isabelle Allende. 

Those of us who care about Virginia and all of the other green places we see and read about, should give a nod to Goodwill industries this week. A recycling pioneer that is still blazing a trail for the rest of us, one object at a time, one life at a time.