Local Facebook groups fosters sharing

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 15/10/2018 (2589 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

On Thanksgiving weekend, the St-Boniface/St-Vital Freecycle Facebook group celebrated its one-year anniversary.

The group is run by the three people who founded it — Janelle Delorme, Meghan Waters and Liane Freynet.

Its purpose is to serve people who live, work, or play in the two neighbourhoods. The goal is to spread the spirit of generosity in the community, and to help people get to know their neighbours. There is also an environmentalist aspect, which encourages people to think before they buy things, and to reduce unnecessary waste by diverting unneeded items from the landfill that could have a new life and purpose with someone else.

Members have even offered or donated their personal time through the group, help people in their  gardens or shovelling their snow.

It was important to the group’s founders that it take into account the unique nature of St. Boniface and St. Vital. The administrators are fluently bilingual, as are all group announcements.

“I use the group to get things, and use the group to give things. I’m surprised how many people want things that I might have just thrown out before the group. For example, one person was giving away round Chinese food take-out containers. I would have thrown them away or tried to recycle them, but others use them for meal prep. There were several people that wanted them,” Waters.

Group guidelines encourage people to let a post “simmer” for a day or so, to ensure that people who aren’t on Facebook as often are given a chance to respond.

Everyone uses their own criteria for how they select recipients for giveaway items. Some do it randomly, while some give things away to people they know in the community or through the group.

The groups has over 1,200 members of this writing. Anyone can join as a member, group rules merely ask that trades take place in the St. Boniface or St. Vital areas to ensure that the group’s community building mission is maintained, and so that givers or receivers don’t find themselves travelling great distances. It includes Sage Creek and River Park South; broadly defining St. Boniface and St. Vital as all of southeast Winnipeg.

Whether you have food that may go to waste, old Halloween costumes, half-full shampoo bottles, novelty popsicle moulds or a DVD collection you don’t even have a player for, chances are your trash is someone’s treasure on St-Boniface/St-Vital Freecycle. Find it on Facebook.

Ryan Palmquist is a community correspondent for St. Vital.