It’s spring. Well, it’s supposed to be spring, anyway. Everything in me leans towards cleaning – cleaning up and cleaning out. The soap rack is no exception. As I’m constantly making new soaps and restocking my supplies, I also spend time getting rid of soaps that aren’t saleable. Usually these go into donate piles with one or two meandering upstairs to the basket in our bathroom.
One Monday, my younger daughter was waiting for her sis and me to catch up with her at the church where my teen goes for her language arts class. My daughter had noticed a sign with a bin underneath; one of this church’s ministries was collecting toiletries for migrant workers. Being especially compassionate towards non-native-born Americans at this particular point in our nation’s history, she said, “Mom, you could donate some soaps.”
My initial reaction was consternation; I don’t have any soaps on hand that I’m discontinuing completely. As we were sitting at breakfast the next morning, though, I looked up at my soap rack, which was behind her. And I paused, my mind calculating its unseen contents (the shelves are high from a sitting position). She said, “What?” And I smiled.
“I have some soaps we can donate,” I told her. Her dimple popped out and she got excited. I didn’t have many; you can see the pile isn’t terribly big. I had some Burberry soaps that didn’t behave well in the mould and came out all weirdly quadrilateral but not particularly rectangular as they should. And I had some cucumber soaps that were eventually to have these beautiful dragonflies applied to them before I determined that those soaps are cost-prohibitive to create and discontinued them. One of those bars made it to the basket; its age will guarantee a mild soap and a wildly fluffy lather.
While I was busy elsewhere, the Hubby and she pulled down and wrapped the soaps. She was so excited to bag them up and put them in the bin! That felt good to me, too, and the space on my rack was certainly welcome.
Your donation is very appreciative. We are currently assembling our bags. This year, we have been able to complete 30 bags with some leftover items. We will use some of the extra items in Health Kits for the United Methodist Relief supply that go to areas suffering from hurricanes, tornadoes, fires, etc. Other items will be put in bags for the area homeless, and yet others will go to benefit Mother Hubbard. Nothing will go to waste, we use every item that is donated to help others. It sounds like you have raised a very thoughtful daughter. We have so many blessings and the needs of many are so great. Thank you again and if you are interested in learning more about our church, please come and visit us. We have a fabulous youth program and many activities both service-minded and some are just plain fun. I hope to meet you sometime.
Dianna,
You’re very welcome, and we’re glad those soaps will be used in a wonderful way! I appreciate the invitation to visit your church, and maybe one day we will. We’re active members at a Baptist church across town from y’all.