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| Add Beauty to Someone's Life with Your Donation |
Donating Where It’s Most Helpful and Best Used
When you have leftovers from your garage sale or are
cleaning out the house or garage, you probably think you’re doing a good deed
by donating it to a local non-profit. Some non-profits resell everything, and
some really give things away. If you donate to a non-profit corporation that
sells the merchandise, the people who really need it never get it. They usually
don’t have vehicles to drive around looking for bargains, and they don’t have
money to buy what they need.
I saw a whole box of hotel soaps and shampoos for sale at a
local non-profit store this week -- someone had spent some time in Las Vegas.
These are great items for the women’s shelter or for a homeless shelter with
shower facilities. If you donate to the place where the product is used, your
donation goes directly to someone who needs it and won’t get thrown out if it
doesn’t sell.
Blankets, coats, towels and washcloths are also essentials
for women’s shelters and homeless shelters. New products like unopened make-up,
combs, brushes and even emery boards are helpful donations for shelters. Shelters
need school supplies because kids are homeless, too.
Call around and find out which organization can use your
leftovers, instead of donating them to a place that sells them. Even the profit
doesn’t go to homeless or needy from some of these non-profit stores; it goes
to build more stores and grow the capital of these non-profit outfits. Many of the non-profit stores
pay management bonuses to use the profit, while lower-level employees get minimum wage and
aren’t allowed to purchase anything in the store.
When you live in a nice neighborhood, it’s difficult to
locate individuals who really need, but they’re in every town and city in
America. You can make a difference with your cast-offs by touching base with
organizations like food pantries, homeless shelters, women’s shelters and the
Salvation Army donation center. These organizations run shelters and provide food as well as
supplies to individuals and families. Coat drives give away coats before the
cold weather begins. Some organizations give away fans in the southern states
in the summer and provide blankets in the winter.
The Salvation Army in our
area interviews individuals and provides a voucher for household necessities
like silverware, pots and pans and sheets -- particularly helpful for someone
who leaves an abusive relationship or is starting over after a fire. When the
person finds an approved item, it’s checked off the voucher and bagged at no cost
to the individual. If the store doesn't have all the items at one time, the person can return to shop until listed items are located and checked off the voucher.
Before you make a run to the nearest thrift store, consider
where your donations will reach the end user. A place that sells the items to
build another store may not be your best choice.
See you soon!
Linda
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