I've been getting rid of a lot of stuff I've never used, but have carried around from move to move. To wit: Still-in-plastic dish towels marked "dairy" and "meat" (bought in jest by my mother, since I keep Kosher, but not to the extent that I use different dish towels!), and many, many Kosher cookbooks I've never used.
I offered them on Freecycle in a town that is less than 5 per cent Jewish, and I'm one of only a handful who is Kosher. I was shocked to get quite a few people interested in them, and not just those who collect cookbooks.
The woman I chose is a Hispanic Catholic lady who has a friend who just moved to town - a Kosher, Jewish friend. She wants to set up her kitchen so that she may invite her friend over for dinner. She thought a Kosher cookbook or six was the place to start (I didn't bother to tell her that most cookbooks can be used for Kosher cooking, so long as you avoid the biggies - no meat & dairy in the same meal, skip the shellfish, etc.).
When she arrived to pick them up, I offered her not only the cookbooks, but a turkey baster only ever used for Kosher meat, the dish towels, stickers for pots & pans that say "dairy" and "meat," and a number of other things. She accepted, and left with arms full of stuff, more than the six cookbooks she'd expected. On hearing I was moving, she said she'd "be in touch" when she had boxes for me (since she just moved). Most of the time I hear that I never hear from the person again, so I pretty much had forgotten.
Today, she repaid the favour, emailing me to offer me moving boxes.I told her I needed book boxes, and she showed up two hours later with more than a dozen of the size I need, enough to finish packing my books! Freecycle rules are that the offerer makes the items available, the recipient picks 'em up. She even delivered!
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