Freecycle: Giving, getting site takes off

July 13 -- A giving-getting-for-free web site is a huge hit in Milwaukee, racking up more than 1,800 members in less than two months.

"This group is multiplying like rabbits," Milwaukee Freecycle founder Krista Rose said.

Rose has worked hard to promote the site. "I've just done my best to push, push, push," she said. "I have sent out close to 6,000 e-mails."

Rose's husband, a local truck driver, has dropped off flyers to various businesses promoting the site. The group also was featured in a Channel 4 newscast.

Freecycle is now so popular that new members are advised not to sign up to receive all the individual e-mails and postings flying back and forth -- there are just too darned many. Instead, the postings can be read at the Freecycle web site or can be received in digest e-mail form, with numerous postings included in a single e-mail.

Freecycle offers what Milwaukeeans love more than the average bratwurst and almost as much as the Packers: terrific bargains. And free is as terrific as it gets.

Things given away through the site include a computer monitor, a dog kennel, a snow blower, tomato cages, and beanie babies.

Freecycle allowed the items to be claimed by new owners, rather than being tossed into landfills. Part of the idea is to preserve landfill space as much as possible, Rose said.

Milwaukee's Freecycle is one of dozens nationwide. "It's all across the US," Rose said. "It's up in Canada. It's in Russia now."

Rose, who runs about 60 web-based groups of varying sizes, said Milwaukee's Freecycle has grown bigger faster than any of her other groups.

"There's no comparison," she said.

Rose, 38, of West Allis, gets nothing but satisfaction for running the site. She does, however, at times get to influence who gets particular items being offered.

"Priority is given to non-profit shelters," she said. Clothes that somebody no longer wants may be just what someone else in a battered women's shelter needs, she said.

"Those ladies and their children, they come in with the clothes on their backs," she said.

"The ultimate goal," she said, "is to help people."