Neatly Balanced: How to purge your house while helping others

Getting your home organized can be overwhelming, where do you start? And what do you do with all of the stuff afterwards? One Nashville woman has made it her life's mission to help people get organized, all while helping organizations all over Middle Tennessee. Her name is Kristy Edwards, and she has always loved helping others.

Whether Edwards is volunteering or organizing, she is not one to sit still for very long. She first realized her life's purpose on a mission trip to Honduras. "I completely fell in love with the people. I had never had witnessed such poverty in my entire life," she says. "Something inside of me snapped. I remember looking at my mom and I said, 'something's got to give.' We live in a country where more is more, and everybody has multiples of everything. And it's bigger houses, bigger cars, more toys, more clothes. And these people were living with nothing. I can't fix all the problems in the world, but if I can help those who lack basic essentials, I really want to do that."

That's when Edwards started her company, "Neatly Balanced." Here's how it works: She helps you organize your home, with a no-non-sense approach to getting rid of things you no longer need. "So yes we organize items, yes we try to make the rooms look prettier, but its more of, we hold up things and ask, are you wearing this? Are your kids playing with this toy?"

This is the part that makes "Neatly Balanced" different, your items will go exactly where they are needed. "We donate things on their behalf to organizations, but we actually contact the organizations first to say, 'hey, here's what we have, what do you need?" Then, we specifically take them what they need," says Edwards.

She has a roster of organizations she works with, like the Nashville Rescue Mission, local churches or other non-profits in Tennessee and Kentucky.

The response has been overwhelming. "Almost every single client when they find out about what we offer, they're just like, 'Where have you been my whole life? I didn't know that there were all these people with needs this great here in Nashville.'"

If you don't need organization, Edwards will also just take your unwanted items and donate them for you. She calls them "porch pick-ups." "What I hear from people is, 'oh I've had bags in my car for 6 months," so that is another component we offer.

After a donation is made on the customer's behalf, you'll get a tax receipt showing where everything went. "Each week I get text messages and emails from people that say things like, 'hey this item went here,' or you specifically helped these students," says Edwards.

If you're interested in Neatly Balanced, visit their website at Neatly-Balanced.com.