Hurting, Not Helping: San Joaquin Valley Goodwills Urge People To Hold Onto Donations
STOCKTON (CBS13) - Some would call it a donation dump. A local Goodwill wants its message heard: "Please hold onto your donations, for now."
At the Goodwill location on March Lane in Stockton, San Joaquin Valley CEO Denise Ost told CBS13 employees have to come to clean up the donation area several times a day. Some of the items left aren't even things that can be accepted during normal hours, but people are leaving them anyway.
"To roll up on this – it's a little bit demoralizing," Ost said.
Ost is thankful for the good intentions of those leaving donations behind, but it may be creating more of a headache than a help. Goodwill stores haven't been open since the stay-at-home order was put into place in March.
Still, they're getting an overwhelming number of donations they can't accept. Others are leaving trash.
Whether it's donations or trash, their team has to haul it off to the landfill - unable to process any of the items to resell in the future. That, Ost said, is proving to be costly.
"We have to treat everything as contaminated cause we weren't here to receive it," Ost said.
Often times, too, she said people pillage through the items and end up making a mess. It's happening at every location in the area, she said. Though some are worse than others. The March Lane location is one of those, where Ost said they recently put in new security measures to keep people away for the time being.
Ost said she hopes people know that while they're cleaning out their closets at home, their donations hurt more than help right now. She said she hopes people hold onto them in the future, and bring them in when they can reopen. She says at that time, there will be a critical need for the community.