How to Discard and Donate During the Pandemic
For a couple of months beginning in March, we here in San Francisco put our lives on pause. Just like all my professional organizing colleagues, I had to stop serving my clients. And we all quickly realized that even if we could help our clients get organized, we were still missing a very essential piece of the organizing process: discarding and donating belongings our clients no longer wanted! After all, every nonprofit and donation site was also closed.
Re-opening has been spotty, and many people are still asking me, “Where can I donate things I don’t want anymore?” The good news is, there are multiple options, even during the fluctuating conditions of the pandemic!
I like to use a rolling garment rack when helping client clean out clothes and dressers!
My number one go-to donation site is Goodwill. I sometimes get pushback from people who are not as informed about Goodwill Industries and how the organization uses your donations. So, I’d like to share 4 reasons I think they’re a great organization and a wonderful donation resource.
Goodwill is a 501 (c) 3 nonprofit organization. It does not make a profit on your donations.
Goodwill does sell your donations! The reason they do this is that Goodwill is a job training organization. The money raised by selling your donations is used to train and pay members of our communities who might otherwise find it difficult to find employment for a wide variety of reasons.
Goodwill takes almost everything. This means that your donation drop off can be a one stop shop. However, items accepted vary by region and location, so be sure to check in advance if you don’t want to be surprised.
Goodwill keeps as much stuff out of the landfill as possible. The very second you drop off your donations, workers immediately begin sorting the items so that they can put them to the best possible use. This does not mean you should dump items you think might end up in the trash at Goodwill. This wastes the workers’ time and the organization’s money.
In San Francisco right now, some, but not all, locations are open. Be sure to check your local area for the specific Goodwill donation sites that are currently open before you drive over!
However, there are a few reasons Goodwill donation drop offs might not be the best fit for you.
You may only want to discard a couple of small things.
You may want to feel some kind of connection to the recipient of your donation.
You may want to donate something that Goodwill cannot accept, perhaps consumable products like pantry ingredients, cleaning supplies, or paper products.
In these cases, the best solution is to offer your items for free on Facebook or NextDoor. These platforms do take a little bit of extra work on your part. You need to have an account, create listings for your items, monitor responses, and coordinate pickups. On the flip side, you can manage everything from the comfort of your home, arrange contactless pickups, and know that your items will be used and loved by someone in your neighborhood.
There are still a few reasons that neither Goodwill drop offs nor social media free listings will work to help you to get rid of things you no longer want.
You might have a very large amount of stuff to discard.
You might have large scale items to donate, like furniture, that don’t fit in regular vehicles.
You might have specialty items that you believe to have value, and would like to sell rather than donate.
You might have very limited time and be willing to pay someone to make your donation problem literally disappear!
An actual photo I sent to Remoov while scheduling a pickup for a client.
In that case, if you’re in the Bay Area of CA or the Phoenix metro area in AZ, I have the perfect solution for you. Remoov, a locally owned and operated company, is what you always wanted a junk hauling company to be. I have used them with multiple clients and could not be happier about recommending them.
Here’s how it works. You schedule a pickup appointment in advance, which includes submitting pictures of the items you would like picked up so that they can be sure they have enough manpower and space in the truck. The day of the appointment, you’ll have a link where you can follow the truck on a map! The crew of wonderful professionals will arrive and remove everything from your home. Once they’ve picked up the items, they consign whatever they can, which means you can recoup some (or all!) of the cost of the pickup, depending on your items! The rest, they donate or recycle, making every effort to keep as much stuff out of landfills as possible. But just like with Goodwill - please don’t ask Remoov to pick up obvious garbage for you! That just wastes their time, and your money.
Are you starting a home organizing or decluttering project and looking for help? I work with clients virtually to help them discard and donate the things they no longer need and organize everything that’s left so that everyday life just runs more smoothly. Read more about how my virtual organizing service works here, and book your professional organizing consultation here!
LMW
