Monthly Project wrap up- Season of Giving (or shredding!)

For the month of December over at The Sisterhood of the Shrinking Jeans we were asked to remember that the holidays are a season of giving.

I'm all for that!

Looking back, there was much more I wanted to do, should have done, could have done -- you know that drill. But I have to say every little bit helps, right? I bought two gifts for the Angel Tree at church. And a toy for Toys for Tots.

My more unusual way of helping out  was something else and it has kind of snowballed. Where I work, I always see HUGE bags of shredded paper going into our recycle Dumpsters back by the loading docks. I kept thinking "someone must be able to use this" and I called around. It turns out that while some animal shelters DO use this shredded paper for pet bedding or as stuffing for DIY dog beds, none of the shelters in my area were among them. However, my local shelter welcomes shredded paper, along with any other recyclable paper, to go into the recycle bin they have in their parking lot, called Paper Retriever. The shelter receives a donation per pound for all the recycled paper collected in that one Dumpster. So, one day after work, I hauled 3 large bags over there.

 And when they told me they could also use newspapers in this Dumpster (capitalizing that word is the journalist in me since I know Dumpster is a trademarked name lol), I told them they were in luck. I work AT a newspaper! Each week I am surrounded by tons of papers that we toss into the recycling. So now i have all my co-workers dropping their recycllng off to me outside my office, instead of them throwing it into their own recycle bins. I collect up their old newspapers (we are flooded with them, like I said) and their computer print out papers AND I have our maintenace guy drop off the bags of shredded stuff to me as well. These people won't know what hit them when I keep filing up their dumpster with old newspapers! At least once a week, I will stuff the entire car with all of these boxes of papers and head to the animal shelter. Oh, and then there are the gazillion old magazines I have around the house...

I also baked cookies for a holiday cookie exchange (seen below in take-out containers from the Chinese restaurant and decorated with disc of scrapbook paper) and I served on my company's decorating committe for our holiday luncheon, which believe me when I say was the LAST thing I ever wanted to do). But I was asked and I thought about our  monthly project of giving and so I said yes. And ya know what, it wasn't all THAT bad! lol