So I have spent some more time on the freecycling exercise.
It works amazingly well. I have unloaded an old point and shoot camera (noted earlier), two printers, an old laptop battery charger, and a pair of underbed storage drawers. I have acquired a working cordless trimmer (charger still being sought by the donor) and a Yamaha digital piano/MIDI controller (yet to pick up, but my name is on it). This kind of invisible commerce may be the despair of economists but it works.
If you haven’t tried it and want to either divest yourself of some useful but no longer needed stuff, give it a try. Likewise, if you need stuff that may be hard to find in stores or that you suspect might be available for the asking, it doesn’t hurt to try.
Notable items I have seen freecycled:
* a bread machine (new with recipe books)
* electric piano
* many futons and mattresses
* lots of storage-related stuff (shelves, containers, filing cabinets)
My next project may to pull together enough old kids bike parts (or whole bikes) to let my school’s health and fitness teacher run a bike safety class and bike rodeo without using a lot of district (ie, taxpayer) funds.