TwoShirts is a gift-giving community

Here’s the description of their aims:

“Twoshirts is a community of gift-giving where people freely give and receive all kinds of different things in our items listings, from appliances, to clothing, to help and services.

Twoshirts members have given away over 1000 items to each other since we started in January, 2008. We simply think generosity is a better way to live.

In fact, our vision is to connect the world in relationships of generosity.”

Here is how they explain the spiritual underpinnings of the project:

“Over two-thousand years ago John the Baptist agonized over the needs of the poor and flatly stated that poverty existed partly because people neglected the practice of generosity:

“What should we do then?” The crowd asked. John answered, “Anyone who has two shirts should share with the one who has none, and anyone who has food should do the same.” (Luke 3:10-11)

Generosity is an ancient virtue that enables caring communities to help each other overcome the inequalities of life. It is the opposite of greed, which magnifies the inequalities of life.

Sharing Creates Equality

Jesus also taught this ancient wisdom, saying that truly good people would be generous even to their enemies (Matthew 5:40-42). We know his followers took him seriously, because they practiced an amazing form of community life:

“All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need.” (Acts 2:44-45)

What if we took Jesus seriously? Imagine what kind of transforming community would be created by people who were willing to care for each other in this radically counter-cultural way.

Our Mission & Values

Our mission is to connect people, groups, and communities in relationships of generosity. By sharing our resources, and by forming local groups committed to activism and outreach, we will help meet each other’s needs in order to live a better life, in a better community.

We are driven by a passion for three values:

Equality:

Our goal is to promote a more just and equitable community by generously giving to those who have needs, and by freely receiving from others who can meet our needs.

Relationships:

Market-driven communities create isolation and greed because cash frees us from the gratitude and indebtedness inherent in gift-giving. We believe this kind of relational detachment is the truest form of bankruptcy. Therefore, we aim to foster relationships of grace and gratitude by practicing direct, person-to-person giving.

Participation:

We believe the popular concept of poverty contains a destructive lie: that some people have nothing. The truth is, every person has something to offer. When we treat those with little money and material possessions as though they have nothing, we exclude them from humanity and debilitate their role in the community.

Rather, we believe everybody has something to give. Therefore, we ask everyone to give something in order to get something from the Twoshirts community. We believe this promotes dignity, responsibility, and inclusion for everyone, especially those normally thought of as poor.”