Category Archives: D Movement

Project Organize 2011: The Results are In!

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Contest winner Cindi Moore and family.

Cindi Moore found herself overwhelmed by the amount of stuff she, her husband and three kids had accumulated in just three years. The Moores moved into their house in Old Hickory in 2008 and, up until recently, they also worked out of their home.

“In August, we moved our home business out to a retail location, and we were in the process of trying to convert our home back into a home,” said Moore. “We had three rooms that were just a mess.”

Before winning.

Just one month after the big move, Moore entered our Project Organize contest. Moore and about 100 others sent in pictures of their three messiest rooms, and told us in 200 words or less why they needed help getting organized. The winner would get one free organizing session with Tanna Clark, owner of Complete Organizing Solutions, one five hour house cleaning from Angel Maids, a $500 gift card to The Container Store and a $100 gift card to Goodwill.

Moore got the call in October. “I about hit the floor when they told me I had won. I was ecstatic.”

The process started in January, when Clark came out for a brainstorming visit. “I loved working with Cindi because she was very crafty, and she had great ideas,” said Clark. During Clark’s second visit, they started the purging process. Moore loaded up three big boxes full of stuff and took it to Goodwill. In March came the fun part – the shopping. Moore had $500 to spend at The Container Store. To help her get organized, Clark helped her pick out the right purchases. That included several containers to store the stuff they decided to keep. Then it was off to Goodwill to spend that $100 gift card. “We found some great things at Goodwill, including several baskets,” said Moore. And those baskets and containers are now being put to good use in their newly organized home.

  

  

After the Moores got organized, Angel Maids came out to the house for a five hour cleaning. “They got us sparkling just in time for Easter.”

Without Project Organize, Moore says the family would still be living in an unorganized home. “Because of the time and cost, it would’ve taken us three to four years to get organized.” Three to four years turned into three to four months, thanks to a little assistance and some new and gently used purchases.

Project Organize 2012

Professional organizer Tanna Clark

Do you have a clutter problem? You could be the next Project Organize winner. Our next contest will take place in September. Look for more information on our website this summer.

In the meantime, Clark has some advice:

  • Whether it’s from a professional organizer or a friend, get help. It takes so much more time to do it yourself, and when someone is helping, we tend to make it a priority.
  • Also, if you are faced with an entire room or house full of clutter, stop focusing on the big picture and mentally separate your house into manageable goals.
  • Don’t buy a single organizing product until you have sorted and weeded out what doesn’t belong.

Remember: when you are boxing up the items you no longer want, be sure and donate them to Goodwill!

Springing into Spring Cleaning

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Spring is springing – and that means it’s time to throw open the windows, clean everything, and clear out the clutter.

If you’re feeling the stranglehold of too much ‘stuff’ and unsure what to keep,  there’s an easy way to lose the excess baggage.  Lorie Marrero, creator of The Clutter Diet, suggests prioritizing when you decide it’s time to clear the clutter and give yourself breathing room.  It’s as simple as A, B, C, D!

A items – Used frequently, even daily
B items – Used often, weekly or monthly
C items – Used rarely or seasonally
D items – Never or seldom used – time to donate!

(Not sure where to start? Goodwill is in need of your gently-used clothes, shoes and books.)

Dieting is always easier with a support group.  Our community relations manager, Natisha Moultry, has some tips for organizing a neighborhood donation drive:

  • Select a date and time for your drive. Most neighborhoods coordinate the donation drive with their community-wide yard sale or cleanup.
  • Inform all residents that Goodwill will be in your neighborhood. Even residents that are not participating in the yard sale may have items they want to donate.
  • Find a central location for the Goodwill truck that is convenient to everyone in the neighborhood. The pool or clubhouse areas normally make great spots for the donation drive
  • Post information about the donation drive on your neighborhood’s website or send out an email blast through your home owners association.
  • Inform residents that all donations to Goodwill are 100% tax deductible and an attendant will be on duty to issue donation receipts.

Get a start on spring cleaning and give someone the gift of job services!  For more information about starting a neighborhood donation drive, e-mail Natisha or call (615) 742-4151.

Saying ‘Thank You’ Just Doesn’t Seem Adequate.

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Saying ‘thank you’ just doesn’t seem adequate.  How can I, how can all of us at Goodwill, thank you enough for all the donations you give?  Without you, our donors, Goodwill could not fulfill its mission of providing free employment and training services throughout Middle and West Tennessee.  Without you we could not serve the more than 11,000 Tennesseans who will visit our 17 Career Solutions Centers for help with their job search.  Without you we could not employ 1,600 Tennesseans who work throughout the 46 counties served by our Goodwill.  Without you, lives could not be changed.

Just how do your gently-used items help Goodwill serve its mission?  The items you donate are immediately put to good use.  They are processed and transported to each of the 30 Goodwill stores in Middle and West Tennessee.  More than 85 percent of the revenue from the sale of each piece of merchandise is used to provide mission services.

To read about some of the people who’ve been helped because of the generosity of you, our donors, and to calculate what your donations mean to others, please visit our website.  Add up what each piece of clothing, every household item or electronic donation means in terms of free job services.  You’ll see that you really do change lives.  And for that we say, “Thank you.”

D Movement: The Final Days of Project Organize

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Enter Project Organize by September 30!

As we approach the final days of the Project Organize contest, I started thinking about the reason we created the contest. Most people have a hectic schedule with work, kids and social activities. Getting organized can be overwhelming at times and some people may feel like it is an impossible task. I wanted a fun way to encourage people to clear the clutter in their homes, offices or garage while offering them an incentive for doing so. I was actually at home cleaning my own closets and I wished that I had some help getting things organized. I also thought about how wonderful it would be to have someone else clean after everything was neatly put away. And that was how the idea of working with a professional organizer and cleaning crew was born.

Project Organize offers great prizes; a three-room makeover by Complete Organizing Solutions, a five hour cleaning by Angel Maids, as much as five hundred dollars worth of products from the Container Store and a one-hundred dollar Goodwill gift card.

I encourage all families, whether you win Project Organize or not, to create your own campaign to clear the clutter in your home. Encourage the kids to donate clothing they can no longer wear or toys they no longer play with. Go through the kitchen cabinets, closets and the garage. Donate any usable items that your family no longer needs to Goodwill. Not only are you creating a clutter-free environment in your home, you are also helping Goodwill fulfill our mission of providing employment and training opportunities to people in the community.

If you could clear the clutter in three rooms in your home, what would they be?

D Movement: Project Organize – Kick the clutter to the curb!

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By Tanna Clark, Complete Organizing Solutions

Enter to Win Project Organize!

Let the yard sale season begin! As the cooler weather approaches it’s time to kick the clutter to the curb, with price tags of course!

This is the best time of year to get your house back in order after the busy days of summer, and to prepare for the upcoming holidays. The best way to do that is to declutter. It’s time to take a walk through the house room-by-room to gather all of those items you no longer use or love.

In order to have a successful yard sale here are a few tips:

1. Team with your neighbors. A community yard sale gets much more traffic than a solo sale. Pitch in with your neighbors to put a larger ad in the paper.

2. Price as you declutter. You can buy a pack of pre-labeled stickers with yard sale prices already printed.on them.

3. Set-up the night before. Prepare household items and clothing the night before the sale, preferably in the garage. Move the tables closer to the street the morning of the sale.

4. Get the kids involved. Our most successful yard sale was one in which we had the kids set up a table selling cookies we baked the day before. Cookies are a perfect snack for your shoppers and it drives in more traffic!

The most important clutter-fighting rule is to not let it back in. Once your sale is over pack it all up and head to your local Goodwill donation location or store. All too often we let the clutter back in to take care of it later and later never comes. Take care of it now in order to benefit a greater cause.

Good luck and have fun!

D Movement: Project Organize

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By Tanna Clark, Complete Organizing Solutions

School is in full swing and you may be looking around at the clutter summer has left in its wake wondering how you’ll ever get back to normal! Don’t worry. Goodwill’s Project Organize is stepping in to help you clear the clutter and regain control at home!

That’s right! One lucky Middle Tennessean will win a three-room clutter rehabilitation from Complete Organizing Solutions. This will be the fourth year I have partnered with Goodwill to help a harried family get organized.  This year there’s even more! To help celebrate the upcoming opening of The Container Store in The Mall at Green Hills, the folks at the store have offered $500 in products to be used for Project Organize!

If that doesn’t sound like bliss already, we have something special planned to reward the homeowner for all of their hard work while decluttering. Angel Maids has kindly donated five hours of cleaning!

The contest runs from September 1st – September 30th. Enter here!

In the meantime here are a few tips to get you started on your next organizing project:

  1. Sometimes the largest barrier to getting organized is just getting started! You may be looking at your whole house thinking “Where do I start?” That kind of thinking is likely to get you stuck in a disorganized rut. Stop focusing on the big picture and mentally separate your house into bite size manageable goals and work your way through them.
  2. Don’t buy a single organizing product until you have sorted and weeded out what doesn’t belong. Containers can become clutter, too! Make sure you know what you need before stocking up on supplies.
  3. Think outside the box. Get creative with your storage options. Just because that shoe organizer hanging on the door is for “shoes” it doesn’t mean you can’t find other uses for it  A pocket shoe organizer is great for toiletries, hats and gloves, or for smaller items in the pantry!

Most important – don’t let the clutter overwhelm you.  Think simple!

Goodwill Industries of Middle Tennessee, Inc., has been serving Middle and West Tennessee for more than 50 years and Project Organize is one of its ways of saying thank you for your support and donations!

What room in your home would you most like to clear the clutter?

Happy Anniversary to the Donate Movement!

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Last June, Goodwill Industries International launched the global initiative to raise awareness about the positive impact of donating to Goodwill Industries®. When you donate to Goodwill, you are not only keeping gently used clothing and household goods out of landfills, but you are supporting vital community programs.

Did you know that more than 85 percent of Goodwill Industries of Middle Tennessee, Inc.’s, revenue is used to provide the free job training and services offered at the company’s 17 Career Solutions Centers? Goodwills in the U.S. and Canada average 84 percent of their revenue being used for the job programs that are offered. In 2010, Goodwill Industries of Middle Tennessee, Inc. served 11,200 clients while 2,915 clients found employment. Goodwill agencies around the world served 2.5 million people, and, at year’s end, they employed more than 97,000 people.

The Donate Movement helped Goodwills throughout the U.S. and Canada attract 20 million more donors in 2010 than in 2009, which means we earned more revenue and were able to serve more people. Goodwill Industries International, and Goodwill Industries of Middle Tennessee, Inc., launched the Donate Movement Web site, which features the Donation Impact Calculator (patent pending), allowing you to see how your donations can fund Goodwill’s services. For example, donating just one coat or jacket provides 11 minutes of career counseling to a Goodwill program participant.

During the past year, Goodwill Industries International partnered with major corporations and partnered with Lorrie Marrero, Certified Professional Organizer® as a spokesperson and ambassador for the Donate Movement. Marrero is creator of The Clutter Diet® and author of the best-selling book by the same name, as well as a contributor to Good Housekeeping.

Four corporate cause-marketing partnerships helped the Donate Movement gain momentum. Goodwill’s first partner, Levi & Strauss, Co., began putting “A Care Tag for Our Planet” in their jeans and other products. The tag instructs people to Wash Less, Wash Cold, Line Dry and Donate to Goodwill. Not only does this raise awareness of corporate social responsibility and Goodwill’s brand, but it also reduces energy consumption and diverts items from landfills.

Other partnerships include:

• Family Circle: Goodwill teamed up with the national magazine to encourage readers to organize “Back to School” donation drives, resulting in approximately 20 million pounds of clothing being diverted from landfills.

• Hanes®: The clothing manufacturer partnered with Goodwill, deeming March national “Clean Out Your Drawers Month.” Celebrities Bethenny Frankel and Michael Moloney provided tips on how to de-clutter and organize for spring. The campaign encouraged people to donate the items they no longer use to Goodwill.

• Planet Green™ — the television network devoted to conscious living – leveraged its multi-media platform, to spread the message about the positive impact donations have for our communities and the environment.

Just as you carefully consider to which organizations you will donate your money, you should also consider which organizations should receive your donated goods. When you donate to Goodwill Industries of Middle Tennessee, Inc., you can be assured that you are making a positive impact on both people and the planet.

How often do you donate to Goodwill, and what is your strategy for deciding what to donate?


D Movement: Simplify your Life by Donating to Goodwill

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Courtesy of Goodwill Industries International

Spring presents the perfect time to take a fresh look at the items in your home and decide what should stay and what should go. As you de-clutter your home, Goodwill Industries® of Middle Tennessee can put your unwanted items to good use. When you donate your gently used clothing, housewares and electronics, you are helping Goodwill® provide job training and community- based services to people in your local community.

Here are the top four things that people don’t think to donate.

1. Shoes: When you use the Donations Calculator you’ll discover that when you give one dozen pairs of shoes you provide more than one hour’s worth of free career counseling for someone who is searching for a job with the help of Goodwill’s career counselors. It’s more than just a good way to clean the clutter from your closets, avoid the hassle of a yard sale or to take advantage of a tax write-off. Your donated shoes fund job training and placement for people who want to work but may have a disability or other barrier standing in their way.

2. Books: If you’ve already read a book and have no plans to read it again, donate it to Goodwill. Donating books frees valuable shelf space and makes room for new ones. Check your children’s rooms for outgrown kid’s books or your kitchen for cookbooks you haven’t consulted in the last year.

3. Clothing: You can let go of the jeans that never quite fit or that sweater that wasn’t quite your style. Goodwill gladly accepts donations of gently used clothing. As you’re cleaning out your closet, put clothing donations in a pile and, when you’re finished, bring them to your nearest Goodwill donation express center. When you’re finished going through your closet, that pile might be bigger than you bargained for!

4. Housewares: Sometimes we inherit household items from others or receive them as gifts. If you have a second toaster, vacuum cleaner or blender that you don’t need, donate it to Goodwill.

More than 1.5 million donors have given their gently used items to Goodwill, helping their neighbors build careers and make positive contributions to their communities. Last year, Goodwill served more than 11,000 people in our communities; including people with disabilities, those who lack education or work experience and others facing challenges to finding employment.

One expert who knows all about the process of de-cluttering is Lorie Marrero, Certified Professional Organizer®, contributor to Good Housekeeping and spokesperson for Goodwill’s Donate Movement. She is also the author of The Clutter Diet: The Skinny on Organizing Your Home and Taking Control of Your Life and the creator of ClutterDiet.com, an innovative program that teaches people how to organize their closets, businesses and homes. An organizing expert, Marrero has first-hand knowledge about spring cleaning and the importance of donating gently used items to environmentally sustainable organizations such as Goodwill.

To calculate the impact of your donation or to find a Goodwill Donation Express Center, visit www.giveit2goodwill.org.

What items are making it into your Goodwill donation box?

D Movement: Donate Forward March 20 – 26

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One of my favorite movies, “Pay It Forward,” starred Haley Joel Osment who portrayed a 12-year-old boy who wanted to make the world a better place. In the movie, he does a favor for someone, without any expectation of being paid back. That simple concept was a hit off the silver screen in the U.S. and beyond. A social movement was born with the only expectation being that for every request you make, do the same for others. Pay it forward.

As I think about the history of Goodwill, when in 1902, Boston’s Rev. Edgar J. Helms, had a desire to make his community a better place through the act of giving people a chance to earn a living. Rev. Helms would gather burlap sacks and visit the wealthier residents in his community asking for items they no longer needed or wanted. After collecting the donations, Rev. Helms took the items to his church where people repaired what was broken and then sold the used goods. He didn’t believe in charity. The reverend gave people an opportunity. Those he worked with found success through their own efforts and with work, they gained the dignity that comes with earning a paycheck. Like the young boy in the movie, his goodwill efforts became a movement that would eventually grow internationally.

This simple concept of reciprocity is still central to our mission here at Goodwill. With every donation made to Goodwill, we feel a sense of obligation to pay it forward by giving someone an opportunity to earn a living. We believe it begins with us being good stewards of your donations and ensuring that we maximize your donations to have the greatest impact on individuals, families and our community.

From the time we receive your donation, your donations are supporting a growing list of free job training programs and continuing services offered by Career Solutions. How so? When you donate to Goodwill, things like clothes, small appliances, furniture, and toys, at one of our 67 Donation Express Centers, your donations provide jobs and free job training services.

Each item is handled by an attendant, many of whom may have some barrier to employment. The journey continues when the items are transported to our Goodwill’s main processing plant in Nashville where each piece is processed by Goodwill employees for resale, many of whom have disabilities or other disadvantages. Your donated items are then sent to one of our 30 retail stores for resale.

Once each item sells, with the help of our retail staff, again many of whom have come through our job training programs, the revenue from that sale supports our community-based employment and training programs. Thanks to you, these programs provide thousands of hours of free classes and on-the-job training to thousands of individuals in our communities who have an economic, educational, social or vocational barrier to employment.

The bottom line? When you donate forward, your donations become an investment in the futures of the thousands of individuals who participate in our programs and services each year, and an investment in our communities. It’s a good thing!

Join our movement during the week of March 20 and donate forward.

Have you calculated your impact?

D Movement: Calculate Your Spring Cleaning Impact

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Spring is in the air! Yes it is. Does anyone feel like you need to do some Spring cleaning? Cleaning out closets and drawers is a great way to start a new season. Really, come on get these items into Goodwill, where you can change lives. Goodwill is in need of gently-used items that you no longer need. We turn your items into jobs. Jobs for those who need help finding one and gaining that feeling of independence.

I know what it’s like to help someone change their life. I see it every day with the members of my team. For instance, Byron Sheffield. I know you’ve seen him in Goodwill’s television commercials. He is a real life success story and I’m pleased to say that I had a hand in helping Byron become the man he is today. When I worked in Goodwill’s retail department he was an attendant at one of our stores. He impressed me with how hard he worked to please the donors. Today he is a donations supervisor.

Since coming to the donations department I have watched him grow in so many areas. He now has some computer knowledge and creates the schedule for all of the employees who work for him. In a nutshell, he has just really shown me that the sky is the limit with him. This is what your donations do for people. How awesome is that? It gives me chill bumps just thinking about how cool it is to be a part of a company that really does change lives.

Have you calculated your impact?