MURRYSVILLE, Pa. — The first time Maria Butch-Hawkins heard of the “BuyNothing” group on Facebook was just a little over a year ago, when her cousin told her about this community that was devoted to giving things away for free.
“She kept telling me she got this for free, she got that for free, really nice things. Well, my first reaction was, ‘That’s unheard of, where are you getting these free from?’” Ms. Butch-Hawkins said.
Her cousin invited her to the local group’s Facebook page, and she scrolled through post after post of people gifting items they easily could have sold on Facebook Marketplace — furniture, clothing, knickknacks, tools and toys. She was in awe.
“I had never seen anything like it,” said Ms. Butch-Hawkins, 40, who along with her husband Paul lives in the Douglas Heights neighborhood of Murrysville with their children, 3-year-old Elijah and 5-month-old Aria.
The posts were intermixed with people asking if anyone had specific items they were willing to part with. No money was exchanged.
“My first impressions were really focused on what a positive group it was, but the other thing I was watching was the way people connected with each other and formed a community. There are so many ugly things about social media — this was finally a beautiful way to use social media to give and communicate with your neighbors,” Ms. Butch-Hawkins said.
Her second impression was that this was a great way not only to find things she needed, but also to give things away.
“There isn’t a household I know that hasn’t been impacted by high inflation, but also with supply chain issues,” she said. “I soon realized I have things in my home that I don’t necessarily need, but someone else might really need.”
Liesl Clark and Rebecca Rockefeller, neighbors on Bainbridge Island, Washington State, started the BuyNothing Project nearly ten years ago. Ms. Clark said it began after both women wanted to make a dent in the amount of waste, especially plastic, created when reusable items are thoughtlessly thrown out.
That small idea became big fast.
Today there are over 6.5 million members in 7,500 groups run by 13,000 community builders — all volunteers, including Ms. Clark and Ms. Rockefeller — as well as 650,000 app downloads worldwide.
Ms. Clark said in an interview with the Post-Gazette that the movement has grown grown in part because people are looking for meaningful ways to reduce waste: “But then we soon discovered that the project took on a life of its own. People love connecting with their neighbors; they also intuitively love to share and give. We forget sometimes that our greatest strength is that superpower we get from being part of something bigger than ourselves, and that is the essence of BuyNothing.”
All of the BuyNothing groups are hyper-local and can be found on Facebook or the BuyNothing App. Gratitude is a constant refrain, both from the givers and the receivers.
“We offer people a way to give, receive and lend. People will post an item, and then people will respond with why they would love to have that tablecloth, or could use that chest of drawers, or really need those baby clothes,” said Ms. Clark.
If multiple people express interest, the giver can pick the one to receive that item. That means the transaction often depends on sharing interesting and meaningful stories about why an item is important or valuable.
“Good storytelling is the one of the other great things that has emerged from our project,” said Ms. Clark. “So much of the fabric of who we are, are the stories and experiences that connect us. Honestly, some of the reasons people have given have moved me to tears.”
Ms. Butch-Hawkins said she watched the page for weeks before she finally responded to a post of someone gifting an electric wine opener: “I was hesitant to initially put it all out there, but then I thought, ‘You know what? I bet there are other mothers out there who would get how I was feeling at that moment,’ so I wrote that I could really use an electric wine opener. Stressed out with my kids and would love nothing more than to have a sip of wine at the end of the day, this would really make my life easier. I appreciate the consideration.”
Within seconds she received a reply that said simply: “All yours.”
When Ms. Butch-Hawkins went to pick the wine opener up at the woman’s front porch, she had also left her a bottle of wine to go with it — along with at note that read: “Enjoy the wine. Enjoy the wine opener.”
Since then, Ms. Butch-Hawkins said she has given more than received on the BuyNothing page and — in the spirit of Christmas — she finds the giving part the most rewarding.
Ms. Clark said there is this sense of purpose that comes from giving and expecting nothing in return: “With BuyNothing, you literally feel that — every time you give something away or watch an interaction with people on your local community page and see the pure gratitude that comes when that magic happens.”
When you participate, you aren’t just eliminating waste and saving money (your own or someone else’s) and creating a community: You are rebuilding our social fabric, in much the same way our great-great-grandparents did over 100 years ago, when bartering served a similar social function in frontier communities.
BuyNothing is like no other community on social media. Scroll through any community across the country, and each one is filled with exchanges that reflect our better angels again and again. If you’re looking for something to keep the Christmas spirit alive through the year, give away something simple — and see how it can light up some one’s life.
Several months ago, when the formula shortage was at its peak, Allison Bruno said her sister called her from the Washington, D.C., area desperate to see if there was any formula available here in Western Pennsylvania for her newborn. “I checked the local stores and couldn’t find the specific kind of formula she needed, so I decided to put an ask on the BuyNothing page to see if anyone had any extra,” she said.
Bruno, 32, said she was moved to tears by the response she received by the community members on the local Murrysville page: “I immediately got four large cans and several samples locally, but then someone saw my post and amplified it to larger groups and tagged my name, and I got a lot more for my sister, at a very stressful time for a young mom — that was so meaningful.”
The Murrysville mother of two said she found the BuyNothing community at the same time she moved into her home. “It had been owned by an elderly couple who really struggled to move things out. The furniture they had was immaculate, well cared for and very mid-century modern — I knew we could have sold it, but my husband and I decided instead to give them away,” she said of the furniture, mirrors, lamps, kitchen items and vases they’ve given away so far.
On Wednesday last week, she had just placed an all-glass end table — very 1960s with black enamel legs and gold braces on the side — on the page and had accepted a very heartwarming plea to be considered.
People also gift services like haircuts, facials, moving services, eggs from their chickens, fresh produce from their gardens or the vegetables they have canned for the winter. They have even gifted offers to care for your animals for the day.
Ms. Clark says she often offers her vehicle and her muscle on her page: “I have a truck, and so I often just help people — if they need big things moved around, then I can certainly help with that. That’s a simple no-brainer. But there are people who help folks write resumes, or there’s an opera singer here locally who gave a concert at someone’s home and just gifted her skills, her talents, which is just wonderful,” she said.
No one collects a paycheck at BuyNothing, including Ms. Clark — a filmmaker whose work has been seen on National Geographic and PBS and who now shells out about $5,000 a month out of her own pocket to keep this project going. Her dream is to get funding to pay for the app and the volunteers who run each community. “These are the kinds of startups that we want to see. And it’s the kind of world we want to build — where people still have the free gift economies, but we have to figure out a way to pay for it.”
North Side native Salena Zito is a national political reporter for The Washington Examiner, a New York Post columnist and co-author of “The Great Revolt”: zito.salena@gmail.com.
First Published: December 18, 2022, 5:00 a.m.