College towns have the best thrift stores. Universities attract people with all kinds of different tastes, budgets, and styles. All of which usually and conveniently find themselves donated to the local thrift store by the end of the semester. Some college students who may be enamored with their newfound financial independence may chose to spend their refund checks in the likes of a fancy department store or retail chain, and not the local Nifty Thrifty. Lucky you.
Sometimes college kids can be hard on the clothes that they decide to donate. Rips, beer stains, and other nastiness, but sometimes they are never worn. Sometimes you can find the Ann Taylor shift dress that their mother purchased that they just don't like. And those sometimes you hit a gold mine.
Recent popularity of places like Style Encore and Plato's Closet have attracted college kids to sell rather than donate their clothes but since these stores tend to be more picky with their selection, their scrutiny is your gain. Maybe you find a shirt that needs a little extra loving, wash it! Wear it! Most of these stores will donate remaining clothing from the pile that people bring in to sell to a local charity, so you can catch them there.
If you don't live in a college town I suggest you get to one around what I call Purge Season. Purge Season occurs twice a year at every college campus I have ever been to. December and May. December's purge is a little light as people don't typically leave campus in December. But May's purge makes up for it. Students are moving and their parents do not want them to bring all the junk that they have accumulated with them. So dormitories will set aside a place where kids can dump all of the things that they do not want and they are up for grabs. I have seen TVs, plate sets, martini glasses tablets, Commercial grade rice cookers, never worn shoes, lamps, and so much more during college Purges.
But nobody does the Purge like Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio. They are purging year around. I don't know what you have heard about this place but it is an anti-capitalist gluten free hipster nation located in northeastern Ohio, and my sister goes there. This past week I went to pick her up and just my luck they were having their Purge. So of course I went to see what I can find. You know how Target gets all that cool furniture when kids are about to go to college. It was like that, but free. I found a pink velvet husband (one of those things you sit up on in your bed), antique lamp, animal cookie cutters, and so much clothing.
Oberlin has a designated place on campus that they call the "Free Store." In the Free Store you can drop off anything that you don't want an pick up anything that you do for free. As much as you want whenever you want. Yes. I personally like the idea of a free store. I doubt that it would work in Detroit as people tend to drop off a whole lot less than they plan to take. (I did too, but I wasn't prepared, so forgive me) But I do like the concept, as there is sooo much that we throw away needlessly in this world.
So I got to ask: What was your greatest free find?
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