Want to expand your infant’s wardrobe? Cage in your garden’s tomatoes? Grab a beach read? Or spice up your intimate life?
If you live in the Rye City School District, you may find just what you need on Buy Nothing Rye, a lively Facebook group that has enabled locals to pass along items to neighbors since March 2020.
Worldwide, the Buy Nothing movement, started in Washington state in 2013, has millions of members in thousands of local groups in dozens of countries. Although there have been some efforts to commercialize the group, most participants, like those in Rye, are volunteers and use Facebook as their platform. Buy Nothing promotes a purely “gift economy.” Nothing may be sold on the site.
Just over 1,200 people — only one person per household is allowed — are currently approved for the Buy Nothing Rye group, explained Suzanne Brody, who has administered the site as a volunteer since November 2020. The Rye group is overwhelmingly female with only 3.8 percent ofparticipants ֫— including this reporter — being male.
Buy Nothing Rye is active year-round. On a recent Monday, for example, there were close to 30 new listings with write-ups and photos of such items as a 2016 Catholic high school entrance exam book, a Batman insulated food jar, four cartridges of Canon 271 printer ink, hangers, four hockey hoodies, photographer’s props including mini pumpkins, size 4 pink Stride Rite first walking shoes, a child’s rolling suitcase emblazoned with the name Catherine, a red wagon with natural wood rails (needing a little repair work), and seven glass vases.
“I love the idea that one person’s trash is another’s treasure,” said participant Carol Meyers. Over the years, Meyers has donated helium for balloons, furniture, books, and games among many other things. She once gave away heavy cream when she had bought too much.
On the flip side, Meyers has acquired toys, jigsaw puzzles, and other items she used in arts and crafts projects at the school where she works. Her “absolute favorite” Buy Nothing Rye find? A cake dish decorated with but- terflies that matched china her grandmother had owned long ago. “I felt like it was my grand- mother saying ‘Hi’ to us,” she recalled.
Member Michele Chillemi believes Buy Nothing Rye has “really become a community.” While picking up goods on the porches of members’ homes, she has seen areas of Rye she was unfamiliar with, she has made new friends, and she looks for- ward each day to the “humor and playfulness” many posts contain.
That type of enthusiasm among Buy Nothing Rye members is no surprise to Brody. Describing the group to outsiders, on the other hand, can be challenging.
“I’ll try to explain it to my in-laws in Palm Beach and they think it’s nuts! And yet I’ll arrange to leave four uneaten granola bars in a bag on my front porch and someone driving a Land Rover will swing by to pick them up,” she said.
The group is most active on weekends when it is not unusual to see 70-plus new listings, including curb alerts. Curb alert postings announce that people are free to pick up items that have been placed outside a member’s home. Examples of some higher value and unusual past offerings include bicycles, boogie boards, chandeliers, a Christmas tree, crocus bulbs, a dishwasher, an inversion table, a kid’s size battery-powered Mustang convertible, kayaks, a Nespresso machine, outdoor furniture, and a vacuum cleaner.
Buy Nothing Rye has a reputation as being such a good source of quality goods that Brody and co-administrator Patty Capparelli are often challenged to limit the group to Rye City School District
residents. All applicants to the group must show solid proof that they indeed live within its boundaries.
In posts to the group, Brody frequently emphasizes that “participation is 100 percent at your own risk,” but she takes very seriously the responsibility for making sure that all members are truly neighbors in Rye.
Safety and civility are leading themes in a series of 10 group rules on the Buy Nothing Rye home page, such as: “Participate as yourself” (no pseudonyms allowed) and “Respect your neighbors, their privacy, and property” (private messages may only be sent when specifically requested).
It’s not unusual for people with a thin connection to Rye or people who have moved out of town to try to get into the group, Brody said. At times she uses humor to under-score the group’s residency rule. In one group post in September 2022, Brody wrote: “Even if your great aunt lives in Rye and you visit regularly for Sunday night dinner, this is not the group for you.”
Unfortunately, scammers do occasionally try to take advantage of the group, which is why monitoring is important, explained Brody. In 2021, for example, a group member posted stories saying her daughter worked at an inner-city school that needed donated items. Buy Nothing Rye members gave many items to help out. Brody grew suspicious and did research that determined the woman did not live in Rye and had used forged documents to gain admission. The woman was removed from the group. Brody is quite sure the school story was false and the woman sold many of the items that had been donated.
Although there are occasional problems, Brody, who estimated she averages an hour a day working on Buy Nothing Rye, said the experience has been overwhelmingly positive. In addition to making many new friends, she and Capparelli are proud of the group’s positive environmental impact, because many listed items would likely have been thrown out and landfilled if they had not been passed along.
And Brody has enjoyed her share of laughs from overseeing this unusual community. Smiling and shaking her head, Brody recalled the time last December a member offered up a collection of sex toys.
“Adult only post!” the listing started. “These were a well-intended gift from a friend of mine. Body safe…toys. Still in the box sealed. If you’re too timid to post publicly, feel free to PM.”
A “TAKEN!!!” announcement on the post indicates the goodies from the company Strange Bedfellas found a new home, thanks to the power of Buy Nothing Rye.
Rye City School District residents can apply to join Buy Nothing Rye by visiting the group’s Facebook page at https:// www.facebook.com/groups/ BuyNothingRye
