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Community Care provides opportunity to ‘take what you need’

January 2, 2025   ·   0 Comments

By Brian Lockhart

For someone needing a warm coat on a cold day, the Community Care bins on Albert St. in Alliston provide an opportunity for someone to simply take what they need, free of charge.

The curbside bins offer clothing and other household items, sorted by size and age group, for someone who may be currently having some financial difficulty and having a hard time finding suitable clothing for themselves or their children.

The initiative was started by Alliston resident Jacqueline Muramatsu, in front of her home, and once word got around, has become a popular place for people to visit and find what they need.

While everything is free, people are encouraged to “take only what you need – there may be other people who need something more than you do.”

Jacqueline had the idea of providing a place to drop off or pick up clothing after seeing community library boxes in various places where you can borrow or drop off books.

“I thought it was a really great idea,” Jacqueline said. “I thought these days many people need a little more assistance with things other than books, so why not take it a step further and trade every day items, clothing, houseware, things that people actually need when they are starting out or maybe their lives have been thrown, and they need something new and they need to start over. This is a place they can come to and get free things. It’s a give and take type of thing. I have some people who come here and give and never take anything, and there are other people who really need the help and take things.”

Jacqueline started the project in July 2023.

“It’s been a good balance of give and take,” Jacqueline said. “There are some days when I don’t get any donations but there’s usually more than enough items left in the bins. When people make donations, I bring them in, wash the clothes, sort them out, and put them in bags and write the size and gender on the bag so people know what it is. I don’t mind taking the money for that out of my pocket because in the past, I’ve been in similar situations where I could have really benefited from a resource like this.”

Jacqueline began by putting out some flyers at local businesses to get the word out and people quickly took notice.

“The whole idea is to get the community to work together and help each other,” Jacqueline explained.

The Community Care bins are located on Albert Street, directly across from the Town of New Tecumseth Administration Centre.

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