How often do you do something for nothing?

Would you sit around a rickety perspex table sewing reusable shopping bags - for free? 

Last week at the greengrocer, with arms full of apples and fibrous matter, I picked up a Boomerang Bag - after realising my usual shopping tote was at home filled with decomposing socks. 

The bags were hanging by the counter, along with the happy instructions to ‘Take me home, then bring me back!’. Loose produce crisis averted. 

They're made from recycled materials and the goodwill of volunteers, stitching together solutions to the world’s plastic problem. 

Doing something for nothing. 

That is, if it’s money you’re after.

As I hitched my snazzy new Boomerang Bag over one shoulder, I thought of Jan or Pam or Neville who lined up the sides and sewed straight lines for hours at a time - so I could avoid using plastic.

They don’t do it for financial reward, I’m sure, but a different kind of profit - one that can be multiplied ad infinitum. 

In working for free, they grow rich in personal satisfaction. In giving good things away, they seed goodwill in their community. In saving my ass, they save a plastic bag. 

Doing something is never for nothing - especially when it comes to volunteering - and I reckon the Boomerang Brigade will be paid karmic dividends for years. 

Unlike me, who’s never giving this bag back.