Fresno-area Goodwill thrift shops: Don’t drop off donations during pandemic. Here’s why
Goodwill stores in the central San Joaquin Valley have a request that six months ago would have seemed absurd: Please don’t donate.
More accurately, please don’t dump your donations outside their stores.
It’s a situation costing the organization thousands of dollars in cleanup at a time when they don’t have income coming in, said Denise Ost, president and CEO of the Goodwill of the San Joaquin Valley.
The organization has 15 stores across 13 counties, all of which are closed during the coronavirus pandemic as the stores are following the governor’s orders, she said. Second hand and thrift shops are listed as non-essential businesses by both Fresno and Clovis. Goodwill has furloughed 350 employees.
But people are dropping off donations outside the stores anyway, Ost said.
“We are really getting dumped on. I understand people are cleaning house while they’re home sheltering in place,” she said. “We’re closed and we can’t staff our donation sites, so the stuff that people are leaving is getting pilfered and then turned into trash.”
Piles of clothing and toys have been left at store doors, which then are picked through and scattered around. Goodwill doesn’t have a way to decontaminate the donations, Ost said. And without knowing where the goods come from – or if someone with COVID-19 has handled them – they have to reject them, she said.
“Clearly it’s been rifled through and strewn about,” she said. “We don’t know if someone who touched it might have that active virus.”
Those donations are taken to the dump. The nonprofit organization pays a driver and a helper to haul them away, along with paying the dumping fees and gas costs.
It’s costing an extra $20,000 to $30,000 a month in expenses for the organization’s 15 stores.
“All of those while we can’t generate revenue by the sale of merchandise,” she said.
A few people have even posed as Goodwill employees and accepted donations, only to pick through them and leave the donations strewn about, she said.
Goodwill still wants people to donate financially online. The money goes toward Goodwill’s mission of providing employment and training opportunities to people facing barriers to getting jobs.
And as for the clothing and other goods people want to donate? Goodwill really does want them – just not right now.
“We want people to hold onto those donations so that when the shelter in place lifts, we’ll be there to accept the donations that we can turn into funding our mission,” Ost said.
This story was originally published May 4, 2020 at 2:32 PM.
