I am somewhat envious of a generation raised entirely on ebooks and digital music because the associated storage devices are so small. They have no need for the floor to (almost) ceiling bookshelves that line most of my available wall space. Nor do they need to store the vinyl, cassettes and CDs that I am having a hard time parting with.
I rarely buy books, thanks to the marvelous resources of the Multnomah County Library. Regardless, the books I do have seem to be breeding like rabbits. No matter how many I sell to Powells or donate to the library, I have never managed to have adequate bookshelf space for all of my books. Then you add in the crafting supplies, the oversized furniture we inherited from David’s grandparents and the general detritus that proliferates with time and our very reasonably-sized house begins to feel too small. Short of acquiring a TARDIS, we need a purge.
The following may seem like a tangent, but I promise it will all come together in the end.
I am on the board of a start-up nonprofit called the Confluence Environmental Center. Currently, we engage twenty AmeriCorps members in three areas: Energy and Resource Conservation, Healthy Watersheds, and Environmental/Garden Based Education, with a focus on engaging low-income and ethnically diverse communities. You can learn more about what we do by coming to the Achievement Symposium happening on Wednesday, June 27th.
We are a new enough organization that we are running our programs through a fiscal agent, but we are working on standing on our own. In order to do that, we need to raise the roughly $1200 we need to submit our application to become a 501(c)(3) to the IRS (that includes legal and application fees). You can donate to us via our fiscal agent here.
(now’s the part where this all ties together)
Alternatively, you can come to the fundraising yard sale we are having on the weekend of July 13th. That is where board members and assorted friends will be selling our excess stuff to raise money for Confluence Environmental Center. The sale will be held near 35th and Hawthorne, with specific location information available closer to the actual sale.