Forget Black Friday, join us for National Clothing Swap Day

The holiday season is approaching,
and we’re all starting to feel the pressure to make our holidays
memorable by buying a bunch of new stuff. All this shopping is tough on
our pocketbooks, but it also has steep costs to the environment — it
doesn’t have to be this way.

We’re organizing the first-ever National Clothing Swap Day on Saturday, December 6,
a coordinated day of action where people across the country will be
organizing clothing swaps to opt out of the idea that we always need to
be buying more and more new stuff, especially around the holidays. They
are fun and easy events to organize and can make a big impact.

Organize your own event for National Clothing Swap Day.

The idea behind a clothing swap is
simple: people bring items of clothing they don’t wear anymore and give
them a second life by swapping them with family, friends and neighbors
for something new-to-them. These events are a fun, free way to keep our
clothing in use for longer, reduce waste, and push back on the pressure
we all feel to buy new stuff during the holiday season.

We have a step-by-step guide for organizing a clothing swap, but the first step is deciding on three basic things:

• Where do you want to hold the event?

Some ideas: your home, your house
of worship, a local brewery, a bookstore, a wine shop, a coffee shop, a
community center, a library, a school.

• Who do you want to invite?

Some ideas: your family, your friends, your neighbors, your work colleagues, your community, the general public.

• What is the theme?

Some ideas: winter clothing swap,
holiday sweater swap, winter clothing and holiday decoration swap,
clothing swap and food drive, winter sip and swap, kids winter clothing
and toy swap.

Once you decide on those three things, you can really make the event your own. Please join us for National Clothing Swap Day so we can show that we don’t always need to be buying new stuff to have a fun and fulfilling holiday season.