Organized giving

Lately I've felt like I've been surrounded by charitable giving campaigns that extend well beyond the response to the horrible tragedies in Japan. These campaigns have been smaller and arguably less important (they don't exactly involve life or death). For example: prom.

It started with the Pi run to raise money for Jefferson's class of 2013 prom.

But then a couple weeks ago my neighbor Laura contacted me because in the midst of her spring cleaning she'd stumbled upon several formal dresses she wanted to donate to a good cause. Matt and I mentioned in passing a year or two ago that someone in our school system was collecting used dresses for girls to wear to prom, but we had trouble tracking down the details. This year, though, thanks to a nudge from Laura and my own desire to free up some crucial real estate in my own closet, I did some sleuthing and found out that the program is still taking place (yet it's oddly under advertised, if you ask me). After Laura dropped off her goods with me and I raided my own closet, I stopped in at my parents' house to pick up my own prom dress and a couple other formal-yet-still-fashionable dresses from my younger years before dropping off all the booty in Alexandria.

If you're local, here are the details for the FCPS Princess for a Night (PFAN) program that I received from the event's organizer:

This spring, dry cleaned formal dresses, shoes, handbags, jewelry, unused make-up (for example, sample cosmetics), and “nice” shopping bags (for example from Macy’s or Neiman Marcus) will be

collected between Monday, April 4th and Friday, April 29^th, 2011. We are especially in need of dresses for petite (size 0-2) and full-figured young ladies (sizes 18+). (Please do not donate velvet or wintery dresses, soiled items, outdated items, casual dresses, or items for mature women as they can not be used.) Donations can be dropped off at four locations:

1)      Gold’s Gym, 7770 Richmond Hwy, Alexandria, VA  22306. Monday through Friday between 4:45 a.m. and 11:00 p.m., Saturday between 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. and Sunday between 8:00 a.m. and 9:00 p.m.

2)      Hitched Bridal Couture and Creative Planning Salon, 1523 Wisconsin Avenue, NW, Washington, D.C. 20007 (www.hitchedsalon.com). Tuesday through Thursday between noon and 8:00 p.m., Friday between 11:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m., and Saturday between 9:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m.

3)      West Potomac High School, Main Office (Entrance #1), 6500 Quander Road, Alexandria, Virginia  22307. Monday through Friday between 7:30 a.m. and 3:30 p.m.

4)      T.C. Williams High School, Main Office, 3330 King Street, Alexandria, VA  22302. Monday through Friday between 7:30 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. 

If you know of a young lady in need of a dress, “shopping” and dress selection will take place at the following locations:

Mount Vernon High School 8515 Old Mount Vernon Road, Alexandria, VA 22309 on Saturday April 30^th from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., and on Monday May 2nd from 2:15 to 5:00 p.m.
T.C. Williams High School, 3330 King Street, Alexandria, VA  22302 on Friday May 6^th from 3:30 to 6:00 p.m., Saturday May 7^th from 9:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., on Friday May 20^th from 3:30 to 6:00 p.m., and on Saturday May 21st from 9:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
West Potomac High School, 6500 Quander Road, Alexandria, Virginia  22307 on Saturday, May 14th from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., and Monday, May 16th from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m. 

  
If you live outside the D.C. area but you still want to donate your old-but-still-fashionable dresses, there are two other places I'd recommend checking out: DonateMyDress.org and PrincessProject.org, or simply Google "prom dress donations" and your metropolitan area.

Thanks, Laura, for motivating me to follow through with the dress donations this year! I have officially crossed this task off my long-term to-do list.

All this prom giving has Matt and me seriously considering attending BOTH of our high schools' proms this year, which could actually mean that I might attend more than 31 proms in my lifetime.

Reader tip: New year closet organization

Today's post is actually something my friend Dawn told me about many months ago, but with the start of the new year, now seems an appropriate time to share it with you.

Dawn's mom, another super-organized lady, uses this trick in her closets: When she has worn an item, she turns around the item's hanger in the closet. By the end of the season, if a hanger indicates that a clothing item hasn't been worn, she sends the item straight to Goodwill.

This is a great idea! For those of you who are maybe a little more sentimental about your clothing, you can try this modification: if you haven't worn an item in a year, you should put it in the donate pile.

I haven't tried this trick myself because I'm a pretty ruthless closet purger, and I transfer clothes to our guest room dresser (the staging grounds for our big purging pile) on an almost monthly basis. This is, of course, mostly to clear up space to justify making more clothing purchases.

If you're not as ruthless as me, why not take all your closet hangers, organize them facing the same direction, and if by the end of the year you haven't worn something, show you love it by setting it free.

Have you tried Dawn's mom's strategy? Do you have another strategy for keeping your closet clean? If you missed it, you can check out my master closet organization system here.

Tip 23: Taxes and charity

I never dread tax time because we're still getting refunds. "But Stephanie, tax refunds are nothing more than interest-free loans to the government." Yes, I know. I suppose this is my nod to patriotism. I have no real secrets to tax filing except I'd say if you're married and filing jointly, do your taxes together by having one person read out numbers while the other enters them into the computer. This, of course, assumes you use Turbo Tax. I also love how Turbo Tax (we use Deluxe) saves your info from year to year (even though I clearly have the paper copies in my file). Matt and I hooked out this year's taxes in 35 minutes, and that's even with my tendency to triple check everything.

But when we did this year's taxes I made a new discovery...

Tip 23: Use Turbo Tax It's Deductible to determine the value of all your charitable donations.

I donate clothes at least twice a year to Goodwill. The nice Goodwill volunteer would give me a blank receipt, and even though I know exactly what I donated, I never could quite figure out its worth. How much for a pair of jeans? Boots? A T-shirt? That's why I love this ItsDeductible site. Enter your donated items and it automatically calculates their worth. And, believe it or not, it values the items at a higher dollar amount than I would have ever guessed. I suppose this is the classic case of one person's trash is another person's...well, you get the idea.

You can enter items by searching for them, or you can browse for them. I prefer the browse feature, in this case. Here's what the top portion of the Women's Clothing category screen looks like:

 

Once you've entered the number of donated items in each category that applies, it tallies the donation's Estimated Amount, and then it gives you a year-to-date Estimated Savings, or in other words how much you can expect back in your return. So if, for example, I donated one high-value jumper (I have no idea what that item would look like) and one high-value sundress, the Estimated Amount is $21 and the Estimated Savings from that donation is $5.25. Pretty cool, eh?

If you use Turbo Tax this information automatically imports into your account. Even if you choose not to use Turbo Tax when preparing your taxes, I still think this site could be great for tracking your charitable donations. Besides keeping track of donated items, you can also enter money, stock and mileage (driven in service of a charity).

Happy filing!