Share Your Sustainable Gift Ideas!

Updated to include some of the fantastic ideas that were shared!

2/27/2021

Make your gift-giving more sustainable and more unique with these great options where you can find gifts that may be local, handmade, edible, reusable, secondhand or otherwise sustainable:

• Shop one of our local thrift or consignment stores. Shopping secondhand doesn’t require new resources to produce your gift. Or shop the YMCA Thrift Store’s online boutique
• Buy something handmade
• Shop the Blacksburg Farmers Market for food or gift items, or buy gift tokens so the recipient can choose their own gift. The market hosts holiday markets leading up to the winter holidays.
• Shop the local natural foods stores: Eats Natural Foods and Annie Kay’s Main St. Market
• Purchase a subscription to a local Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program
• Purchase a Downtown Blacksburg, Inc. gift certificate
• Support our local restaurants by purchasing a gift certificate for the recipient’s favorite dining location
• Shop at a local gallery for unique art
• Make something yourself
• Give a gift of time
• Make a certificate for their “Own Way Day” when they get to have things their way for a day
• Join the Buy Nothing Blacksburg group and maybe someone will be giving away the perfect gift

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Original Post Below:

Greetings Sustainable Blacksburgers –

Some of you “long-timers” may recall the Greening the Holidays events that our current president Ann Raridon has organized for Sustainable Blacksburg for many years.

This year, with COVID and all, we’re going virtual – and would like to crowdsource green(er) gift ideas from you!  We’ll create a rollup of the gift ideas to share on our social media in time for Thanksgiving (the official start of the holiday gift feeding frenzy).  We’ll collect your great ideas through November 23^rd.

Here’s what we’re looking for:

• Your favorite zero waste products (I have found a shampoo and conditioner bar that REALLY works!)
• Locally made gifts or other ways to support local businesses/artisans/makers (i.e. gift certificates to local restaurants/shops)
• DIY gifts (who wants to learn how to make beeswax food wraps to give as gifts? I know I do!)
• Gifts ideas that address poverty, injustice or environmental issues
• Gifts that aren’t “stuff” – experiences, donations to environmental organizations, etc.

The sky’s the limit!