Secondhand Nation

Hair-Raising: Searching for Eco-Conscious School Fundraisers

 

Figure 1:  Time to learn cursive, kids!  Because in another 70 years, everyone will be typing and that swoopy, unreadable script will be just perfect for giving your wrist a mighty, useless cramp.   But it'll be great for writing anonymous poetry-filled, sachet-ridden loveletters.

Because my daughter started kindergarten this year, I decided to stick my big toe in the volunteer pond and go to a PTA meeting. 

Whoa, mama. 

I thought I'd just blend into the woodwork of our super-70's media center and take my notes and get my info and blast outta there. 

Clearly our PTA is short on help.  I made a few comments and bam!  They nominated me for a officer position.  Ho Lee Shit.

Well, it seems I can handle being Secretary - writing being my calling and all - but among some of the to-dos I was given (write bilingual flyer, sort Campbells soup labels, etc.) was to research fundraising that was more ecologically-minded and less consumerist.   

So I google a few things and come up with a couple of ideas. 

There's Greenraising, which is basically the same kinda catalog you pass to your friends and relatives concept;  your loved ones get to choose from a bunch of magazine subscriptions, refrigerator magnets, and quirky kitchen gadgets like Taco Propers.   

Except in the Greenraising catalog,  instead of chili pepper-themed oven mitts and porcelain dolphins jumping over mirrors, you get a slough of SIGG water bottles and gift wrap made from recycled paper.  Great.  My idea of eco-consciousness isn't buying recycled paper gift wrap.  I already have recycled paper giftwrap.  It's called yesterday's newspaper. 

Along these same lines falls One Planet Fundraising, whose clunky-looking Web 1.0-style  site gleefully promises "40% profits!"  in large glaring blue 20 pt font, as well as "KLEEN KANTEEN" water bottles, CFLs, reusable tote bags and...wha?  What was I talking about?  I got all dizzy with the abundance of "K's" in KLEEN KANTEEN and then fell asleep after "totebags." 

Finally, there's Greenspark, which is like an eco-minded Happenings book.   Being that I HATE coupons (all the beggary, pain-in-the-ass fussy clipping fritters away my life, I feel) the less said the better.

Unless my readers can point me to another source, it looks like it's magazine subscriptions and tankards of cookie dough as far as the eye can see around my house this year. 

Photo:   Elementary school children standing and watching teacher write at blackboard, Washington, D.C. by Frances Benjamin Johnston, 1899, via Library of Congress digital collection.

And now, for my favorite topic: LAUNDRY

Figure 1:  My frozen urchin of a clothespin bag. 

I hate most housework but I love love love doing the laundry. 

I love making my laundry soap, I love folding laundry, and I especially love hanging laundry.  If it's free, it's me, so using the sun for power makes me bubble like cheap champagne. 

But in the winter?  I confess to seeing a pic a long while back of a woman hanging laundry in a huge snow drift. Impressive eco chops, no?  So I dutifully  bought a pair of good winter boots at a thrift store and got ready to climb the drifts in search of free energy.

Figure 2: Not only do my clothes suffer from constant stain drippage, they also get subjected to polar temperatures. 

The main problem with outdoor laundry isn't that it's cold, or that navigating snow drifts is difficult, or that my neighbor's damn ugly bug-eyed dog keeps shitting in my lawn and the pristine blanket of white snow just makes that fact all the more clear. 

It's that you need a perfect combination of windy + sunny in order to get your clothing at all dry and that's not easy to get in Minnesota.

So, First thing.  Weather Is A Factor, Just Like In Summer Drying.  I can't believe I just typed that.  But for all our anencephalic or Martian readers, expect to become even more intimately connected with your local forecast than before.  Otherwise you are looking at frozen jeans and shirts stacked like arctic pancakes in your brittle plastic basket, which will thaw upon returning indoors.

Second thing?  You'll need something to set your basket on, lest it get encrusted with snow.  I usually keep a chair in my yard for this purpose anyway, as I hate bending over and what not.  Right now it's frozen in position.  NIIIIICE.

Figure 2:  Helpful chair that prevents bending over.  Which both saves your back and your neighbor's eyes if you have an unsightly ass.   In the case of my neighbor, I don't give a shit.  Stare all you want, pervo.  Just keep your shitting bug-eyed dog outta my yard. 

Finally, consider Domestic Blowback.  Not to be waved off is The Husband's potent dislike of line-dried clothing, which he generally grumbles about in balmier weather as being too crunchy and coarse.  This rachets up to a fierce hatred when his socks are brittle and icy. If you're dealing with hostile locals, consider using the dryer for their duds and save the Laura Ingalls Method for your clothing.

(As much propaganda as I've deluged him with, he's not buying my argument that stiff bath towels are better for skin exfoliation, which they are.   Hello, the coarse mitt used to scrub your bod after you heat up in the sauan in a traditional Turkish bath?  An air-dried towel works similarly.  Jeez.  I can't help knowing everything about everything.  It's a curse.)

For crappy winter weather (also known as "most of the time) I use an indoor drying rack.  I keep mine in my gacky furnace room, where it is warm and there's space to hog up that nobody else wants to occupy.

There endeth the reading.  Go forth and launder sustainably!