A friend recently held an estate sale, and I stopped by to find her overwhelmed by boxes and trying to keep up with customers. I’ve been involved in the same kind of purging, and the process can be exhausting. But I didn’t have the help of Denver Freecycle, a listerv for locals looking to offload goods.

Denver Freecycle started as a Yahoo group in 2003, and it’s attracted close to 11,000 members. [FC NOTE: If this number has changed since the reporting, please update it in the excerpt box as well.] The messages come fast and furious: If you sign up to receive e-mail alerts in your inbox for each free item, expect more than 50 emails a day. I opted for the daily digest instead, which rounds up the free goodies just once a day. But things do move fast, so if you sign up for the digest, you may miss a deal. (Items are listed as “promised” once they are taken.)

So what kinds of things are Denverites giving away for free? I’ve seen tons of baby items, from cribs to maternity wear, as well as furniture and smaller items, like cell phone chargers.

Freecycle also accepts “wanted” posts from members once a week.