Kelley Rytlewski, Heartening

That moment when you are throwing out a perfectly good item you don’t want anymore, and you get that sinking feeling because you’d love for it to go to a great cause… but where?

Heartening is on a mission to show every unwanted item exactly where it is wanted. Whether it is a bookshelf, a binder, a bike, a baby stroller, a textbook, a kayak, a printer, a mattress, or a pair of jeans, Heartening knows a great local cause in Austin that wants to reuse each and every one of your things.

Heartening is a Benefit Corporation focused on rescuing items for reuse in the local community through a free porch pick-up service for unwanted items and a free online tool to find where to donate items to local causes in Austin (on heartening.org). Heartening tracks the items needed by over 150 local Austin charities and mobilizes donors to route their items to where they are most needed in the community. Go to heartening.org right now and type in anything you want to get rid of — you will see exactly where it is wanted.

If you are too busy to take it there, Heartening will do it for you. When you are donating over $200 worth of items, the porch pick up service will pick up, sort, combine, and deliver donated items to over 150 charities.

So the next moment when you are about to toss out an item you know could be reused, instead, let it do something Heartening.