A Community of Generosity

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.

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

Generosity Combats Poverty

Actually, we think true generosity is more radical than just giving a few nice gifts. We think cultivating a society of generosity is the answer to poverty. It's been said the average American household with a credit card is in debt over $9,000. Many hard-working people are stuck in low-paying dead-end jobs. Some are single-parents struggling to make ends meet and some are even injured or ill, scraping by on disability.

Often these are the hardest working people in our towns, and many are only a paycheck away from being in serious trouble.Practicing generosity is a way of rejecting the consumer-oriented lifestyle that traps so many in cycles of greed, hoarding, and debt and promotes a community of kindness and equality.

Generosity Promotes Responsible Consumerism

Let's face it: Americans buy and trash entirely too much staff. The United States represents 5% of the worlds population but consumes 30% of the worlds resources and is responsible for 30% of the worlds waste. Get this: every one garbage can of waste you take to the curb represents 70 garbage cans of waste that were created to make the products whose waste you are trashing.

Instead of buying things frivolously, or trashing the perfectly good things we no longer want or need, we can save a little space on the planet by giving to each other from among our extra stuff. Save money, save space, save the planet.

Why is it Called "Twoshirts?"

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. Naturally, his audience didn't like hearing that:


“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

It should come as no surprise, then, that Jesus taught this ancient wisdom, saying that truly good people would even be generous to their enemies (Matthew 5:40-42). We know his ancient followers took him seriously, because scripture tells us they practiced an amazingly generous and open 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 empower grass-roots efforts to connect those who have plenty with those who have needs for the purpose of creating equality. 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:
The real problem is that our concept of poverty is a destructive lie. Nobody is actually completely impoverished; nobody as a person has nothing 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 expect 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.

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