This Week's Challenge: Cleaning Out Your Closets

It will feel great to clean out your closets this week in more than one way.  When's the last time you went through your clothing/children's clothing?  Today's the day!  It feels so good to tidy up your life, but today let's take this opportunity to help someone else.  Here are a few tips on cleaning out your closets:

1. Start with a clean room, or you'll make an even bigger and more intimidating mess as you clean out the closet.
2. Choose one area of the closet to focus on, such as a shelf or the floor, and begin there. It will make the task seem less daunting if you break it up into manageable parts.
3. Get three boxes and mark them 'Garbage,' 'Out of Place' and 'The Compassion Fashion Project' or 'Garage Sale (consider donating the money from this to your local shelter)."
4. Buy some stackable plastic bins with lids.
5. Evaluate each item you remove from the closet. Ask yourself if you have used the item in the past 12 months. If not, it's time to think seriously about getting rid of it.
6. Put things for The Compassion Fashion Project into boxes or bags. Or if you have enough stuff to warrant a garage sale, set it aside in your Garage Sale box.
7. Stash things that belong in other rooms in the Out of Place box. (Give these things the 12-month test, too.)
8. Put as much as possible into The Compassion Fashion Project box. It's cathartic!
9. Sort the items you want to keep into categories, such as 'High School Memorabilia,' 'Johnny's Artwork' or 'Winter Accessories,' and store them in the bins. Be sure to label the bins.
10. Label one bin 'Odds & Ends.' In it store found parts, orphaned gloves and other things that may eventually be reunited with their counterparts.
11. Stack the labeled bins neatly on the shelves and floor of the closet, making sure the ones you need to get into regularly are accessible.
12. Now go right now and take your boxes, bins, or bags marked The Compassion Fashion Project and go put them in your car for delivery.

To find the nearest domestic violence shelter in your area GO HERE AND CLICK ON YOUR STATE!

13.  Know you are fabulous for have taken your first step to become a partner in The Compassion       Fashion Project!

Spread the word, friend...