Declutter and Give Back with Rambleraven Gear Trader

By Mitchell Clark, Conservancy volunteer (and Rambleraven staff member)

Turn your unused gear into good with Rambleraven Gear Trader.

Many of us have been there: it’s the day after Christmas and all the presents have been unwrapped. Looking around the living room, there’s only one question left: where is all this stuff going to go?

For some, that line of thinking will kick off a cleaning spree; closets, garages, and sheds are cleared out, and items that haven’t seen the light of day in months are gathered up into totes and bags. (Others, myself included, won’t get around to a big cleanup until the end of May, when it’ll still just barely count as spring cleaning.) Then comes the next question: what do we do with all those things we no longer want?

Donating them to a local charity is certainly a good option, but there may be an easy way to turn the things you no longer want into a donation to the Inland Northwest Land Conservancy. Rambleraven, an outdoor gear store on North Division, has partnered with the Conservancy through a program called Consign for a Cause, which lets people bring in gear, consign it, and donate the proceeds to a non-profit of their choice.

The process is relatively simple: bring in the items you no longer want, and tell a staff member that you’d like to consign them for INLC. They’ll figure out which items they can take and decide on a price for them, then get them out on the store floor. When someone buys that item, 70 to 80% of that money will go to the Conservancy. That means you can feel good about helping INLC carry out its mission, as well as helping a member of our community get a good piece of gear that may have otherwise gone unused.

Currently, Rambleraven is accepting winter gear, such as jackets, winter boots, skis, and snowboards. In the spring, it’ll switch over to taking in warm-weather clothing, like hiking boots, bikes, kayaks, and fishing gear. You can visit Rambleraven’s website for more details on what consignment items they take, but the most important rule is that things have to be clean and outdoor-relevant. If you’re bringing in clothes, be sure to run them through the laundry first, and make sure it’s stuff you’d wear on a hike or a trip to the ski slopes.