A group of real estate brokers has figured out how to allow people to donate things they’d usually take to Goodwill or the Salvation Army, or sell at a stoop sale.
All Goodwill stores and donation centers in New York are closed right now until further notice, and most Salvation Army locations are closed too. It’s a tough time to have nowhere to donate our stuff — we’re right in the midst of spring cleaning season and spending so much time inside that it would be nice to find a way to get rid of those old roller blades, toys or button-down shirts.
Scott Harris, a real estate broker at the firm Brown Harris Stevens, is leading a group called the Spring Cleaning Challenge that has partnered with moving companies and Goodwill to do curbside pickup of items people want to donate.
People who want to donate fill out a form, and the organizers will contact the people back and then try to pick up several donations in the same neighborhood at once. A couple of hundred people have already made donation requests and the group has done 50 pickups. Many are on the Upper West Side, real estate broker Cecile Caer tells us.
To learn more about the project, click here. And go here to schedule a pickup of your donated goods.
Photo by Bonnie Natko.
What’s wrong with button-down shirts? If they’re in such bad shape you can’t wear them, the donation places probably won’t want them either.
Most clothing that isn’t sell-able locally is sold by the pound to developing countries.
https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2013/12/10/247362140/the-afterlife-of-american-clothes
Thanks for the link! I’ve been donating like-new clothing and other items to Goodwill for years and was very disappointed when I was told last summer that everything at the 72nd st location was shipped out to be turned into rags to be made into rugs. I’m all for recycling but it’s nice to know that some of the things I donated may have made it to parts unknown where they had a real need for the clothing. : )
Maybe the shirts no longer fit (e.g., a kid outgrew them).
This is hugely helpful info–I’d been wondering what to do with items I’d normally donate. And now I don’t have to put off my spring cleaning! Thank you.