SNOHOMISH — Whether you need an extra bookshelf, a couple eggs, or you have a stack of ‘90s CDs that can use a new home, your wish may be answered through a local Buy Nothing Facebook group.
Many Snohomish residents are part of a community that Buy Nothing national headquarters says includes more than 500,000 members in over 3,000 groups around the world. They call it the “gift economy.”
The groups are free to join, immensely popular and apparently, weather-proof. Not even the recent snowstorms have stopped the sharing.
Recent gives included supplies from a birthday party canceled by snow, offers to run errands or help clear a driveway, and hot meals from families who made extra just to share.
The Buy Nothing Project connects people with others in their part of town. Members are welcome to ask for and give anything — as long as it’s legal — they want. There is no bartering, selling or trading. Gifts of goods or services, from extra cardboard for art projects to the occasional event tickets or fine furniture, and most things in between pop up regularly.
Curiosity drew Michelle Edwards to Buy Nothing about five years ago. Today, she volunteers as a regional administrator for Snohomish and at the global level. “I wasn’t familiar … (with) any sort of gift economy,” she said, but “it’s been one of the best experiences I’ve had getting involved with the community being built in our local area and
beyond. It’s also nice to reduce our carbon footprint by keeping items out of landfills while making meaningful connections with my neighbors.”
Edwards says she has given away everything from a queen bed and dining room table to extra produce, homemade pies, coloring books and pet supplies.
But the most meaningful gift she received was purely sentimental. After two of her friends lost loved ones, a Buy Nothing member allowed Edwards to pick blue hydrangeas from her yard to give to her grieving friends. When she came to pick, the member’s daughter kept her company and helped.
“It was very kind and memorable,” she said.
For Stephanie, who didn’t want her last name published because she doesn’t want to boast about her giving, the groups are a wonderful opportunity to make connections and help people locally all “while offloading stuff you would end up throwing away or otherwise getting rid of” anyway, she said.
“Over Christmas I came across an old digital antenna I had no use for, and put it up not thinking anyone would want it. As it happens, there were four people interested. In the spirit of Christmas I ended up gifting the one and purchasing three more for folks in need.”
The Snohomish mom has also been on the receiving side of Buy Nothing and of a similar group, the Snohomish Sharing Network. One
member donated a bassinet for her newborn. And a woman who came to pick up a Harry Potter DVD from Stephanie got a surprise bonus: a dozen eggs that were so good she put in a request for more.
Some gifts rotate in a round robin. In one local group, women all contribute clothing and exchange binfuls, sometimes for themselves, other times for their children.
The most amazing gift Clearview resident Kristen Parkinson received was for her husband.
“My group has a Wishful Wednesday, and on Wednesdays, someone will post for the Wishful Wednesday and state that people can ask for what they are needing or wanting. I was wanting a roll-top desk for my husband because that was what he had been asking for. Someone replied to my post saying that they had one, so we drove over and picked it up. It’s beautiful! We are so thankful for it.”
Though its reach has expanded to at least 15 countries, the Buy Nothing Project was begun just 40 miles away on Bainbridge Island, by two friends, Rebecca Rockefeller and Liesl Clark in 2013. Their website explains how the Buy Nothing Project gives members a way to set aside the sense of scarcity that comes from depending on money and “creatively and collaboratively” share the abundance around them. The project also aims to reduce consumption of virgin materials and waste.
But the true gift, their website states, “is the people
involved and the web of connections that forms to support them.”
