To ask charity shop workers what you DO and DON'T want donated

[DimityandDeNimes]

Obviously you don't want anything dirty or broken.

I'm having a massive clear out and am struggling to decide what to donate or recycle or bin.

Are you overwhelmed by stuff at the moment? My friend dropped a few bags at a huge charity shop and said their faces dropped at the sight of more stuff!

@purplecorkheart

There are four local charity shops around me. Two have staff members who roll their eyes when you drop in a donation (I am talking about in season clothes with tags that were unwanted gift, read one current big name fiction etc). The other two shop have lovely staff who are always so grateful for stuff. They also swap stock between each shop as one of the shop tends to attract different types of customer. (With donors consent).One shops main customer age group is 20-30 and the other is 50 upwards. One of those two shops also have branches in nearby towns and stock rotates between the stores.

Have you thought that the shops with staff who roll their eyes at you may be the shop that has a problem with storage areas and actually has no room for more - so what if its clothes with tags they still have to be stored and quarantined and if the staff cant even open the bags for 48 hours (72 in some shops) they would only have your word its all good stuff, my DH regularly tells me stories about how he is told the donations are high quality only to find dirty, stained garments in the bag, as for the shop who is grateful well as you have said they can move stock around, they can take more stock that's why they are more grateful they can handle large quantities - people need to realise that charity shops have had to change the way they can take donations, just like nearly every aspect of life has changed nothing i the same anymore

@SoulofanAggron, what makes you think that charity shop staff, who are almost all volunteers don't forget, have time to steam clothes? If something is dirty it will go straight into the rags bag. There are far too many other bags of clothes to sort through without having to clean dirty ones. When l donate clothes and bedding l make sure that not only is it washed but ironed as well. I also put clothes in bags for rags if they are not good enough to sell.

So, I work in the Accounts Dept for an Animal Charity & also volunteer 1 morning a week. We REALLY DO APPRECIATE any donations. However the Covid rules are so frigging strict that ALL donations have to be put aside for 72 hours from when they are dropped off, stored and then collected/sorted. These are the rules. All donations are gracefully received but the storage of the above donations do cause problems with storage. If you can just hold on /call the local shop to check when they are able to take donations, it would be work much better 🤗🤗🤗

I have been donating things to British Heart Foundation for many years. They have never turned me away or sorted through what I have brought. They have been welcoming and friendly and so I continue to donate to them. And buy stuff from them too!

Another MN has already mentioned local FB groups for give-aways.

At the start of lockdown when people were having massive clear outs, my village community started an FB Village 'Exchange' group.
Residents would attach a photo of items looking for a new home, people would comment their interest on said item and arrangements re: addresses for collections would be then made by PM. The items by arrangement were then left outside of peoples houses, in porches, end of garden footpaths etc., so there wasn't any face to face contact. We're still offering items even now 6 months down the line.
Everything and anything was available from childrens clothes, toys, books, furniture, garden tools, the list goes on.
I'm still amazed at all the stuff still being cleared out now.

I post for free on freecycle or gumtree in the freebies section, there is always someone in need willing to take the stuff. Please don't add the landfill if the stuff can be reused

Do shops clean everything before they go on sale? Just wondering about clothes that need dry cleaning.

We had to take an axe to some old, but very good quality mahogany furniture when we cleared DFiL’s house. We have a few charities near us who sell furniture but none would take it, one said they would but when they turned up with a van they refused to take it, saying it was too big 😳
We had no time to advertise it on freecycle etc. as we’d aready been kept waiting for 3 weeks and the house needed to be empty

I have a friend who is a manager at a charity shop that’s part of a national charity

Within this same charity, there are shops that will sell items that just aren’t bought by customers in other shops in another town. Demographics plays a big part not only on the products people will buy but also pricing.

They will ship certain types if items to other shops where the item will sell, some things go on line (eBay) and sadly some things are binned either because They can’t sell them by law, broken, dirty - quite a long list

As the shops rely on volunteers to be open, with many being elderly, they may not be able to open regular hours. Plus they’re short staffed in sorting the donations. They have been inundated with things because so many were having clear outs yet no place to donate AND the tips in our area were closed. Once they opened on a limited basis, it was garden waste only. So many people just dumped bin bags at the charity shop. Regardless of the items or condition they were in

The charity shops were overwhelmed and had no space to even store items until they had staff and space to look at the donations

That’s why some of you will have seen things going into the bin.

If you really want to help, hold on to your things. Donate according to season. Only then Donate what is in saleable condition. Volunteer to help in the shop with the sorting, pricing etc. It doesn’t have to be out front at the till.

@Swiftnicola

Do shops clean everything before they go on sale? Just wondering about clothes that need dry cleaning.

Clothes get steamed Bric a Brac gets washed and due to covid my DH wipes shoes, handbags books CDs and DVDs and anything else with a hard surface with antibacterial wipes, but very few charity shops have clothes washing facilities so anything with food stains etc on the front gets ragged

@AdoreTheBeach

I have a friend who is a manager at a charity shop that’s part of a national charity

Within this same charity, there are shops that will sell items that just aren’t bought by customers in other shops in another town. Demographics plays a big part not only on the products people will buy but also pricing.

They will ship certain types if items to other shops where the item will sell, some things go on line (eBay) and sadly some things are binned either because They can’t sell them by law, broken, dirty - quite a long list

As the shops rely on volunteers to be open, with many being elderly, they may not be able to open regular hours. Plus they’re short staffed in sorting the donations. They have been inundated with things because so many were having clear outs yet no place to donate AND the tips in our area were closed. Once they opened on a limited basis, it was garden waste only. So many people just dumped bin bags at the charity shop. Regardless of the items or condition they were in

The charity shops were overwhelmed and had no space to even store items until they had staff and space to look at the donations

That’s why some of you will have seen things going into the bin.

If you really want to help, hold on to your things. Donate according to season. Only then Donate what is in saleable condition. Volunteer to help in the shop with the sorting, pricing etc. It doesn’t have to be out front at the till.

When my DHs Charity started opening their shops they opened the largest shops first within 2 weeks the regional manager had sent an email to the shops due to open basically saying that the amount of donations coming in was unprecedented and shops he thought could take everything with no problems were overwhelmed all shops were given permission to decide what days they could take donations (at that time quarantine was 72 hours) depending on the size of the stock area

I don’t expect charity shop staff to fall to their knees with gratitude, but it is off-putting when quite a few seem to be so rude. I’m not talking about the odd volunteer, either, but a manager. Spurning donations they haven’t even looked at seems daft.

Rudest prize goes to a refugee charity I rang when I had some pieces of furniture to donate. They were actually new, as dm had bought them and sadly died shortly afterwards. I thought I’d do some good by donating, rather than selling the stuff. The charity person asked exactly what I had, and then said, “Our clients don’t want just any old thing.” Cheeky toad.

Tomasinabombadil that sounds brilliant.

For passing on toys, kids' equipment and most household stuff we mostly post on a facebook neighbourhood site - it's not a specific selling/for free page, just a community noticeboard. we've had lots of success with people picking stuff up same day usually.

Books we take to one of two Little Free Libraries locally, although you do need to message them to make sure they're open for donations and what they want, rather than pitching up and dumping 157 physics textbooks on them. On that note, we've taken old academic or more specialist books to an Oxfam bookshop, and as they were happy to take lots from us we didn't mind making a special long trip.

Facebook marketplace...advertise them as being free.

@IrmaFayLear

I don’t expect charity shop staff to fall to their knees with gratitude, but it is off-putting when quite a few seem to be so rude. I’m not talking about the odd volunteer, either, but a manager. Spurning donations they haven’t even looked at seems daft.

Rudest prize goes to a refugee charity I rang when I had some pieces of furniture to donate. They were actually new, as dm had bought them and sadly died shortly afterwards. I thought I’d do some good by donating, rather than selling the stuff. The charity person asked exactly what I had, and then said, “Our clients don’t want just any old thing.” Cheeky toad.

But they CANT look at things not for 48 hours or 72 hours in some shops, that's what quarantine actually means, my DH isn't even supposed to take bags from customers they are supposed to put their own donations into the donation area but he gets so much abuse when he asks people that he has to and that means donning gloves. Its no good people moaning that their bag full of high end clothes were refused because if a shop has a pen full to bursting with bags they cant even open for 2 days they cant take anymore it makes fuck all difference if its good quality washed and pressed or tatty Primark stuff, My DH has 2 shops but is having to spend most of his time in his smaller one that has restrictions on donations as his assistant manager has been going home in tears due to the amount of abuse she has received. If you think quarantine regulations are daft then take your complaint to Public Health England who devised these regulations and the Charity Retail Association who have advised their members to follow them

@Tomasinabombadil

Another MN has already mentioned local FB groups for give-aways.

At the start of lockdown when people were having massive clear outs, my village community started an FB Village 'Exchange' group.
Residents would attach a photo of items looking for a new home, people would comment their interest on said item and arrangements re: addresses for collections would be then made by PM. The items by arrangement were then left outside of peoples houses, in porches, end of garden footpaths etc., so there wasn't any face to face contact. We're still offering items even now 6 months down the line.
Everything and anything was available from childrens clothes, toys, books, furniture, garden tools, the list goes on.
I'm still amazed at all the stuff still being cleared out now.

We’ve done the same on our road with a WhatsApp group started at the beginning of lockdown. I hate throwing anything decent away and would rather see it go to someone for free than bin it. Loads of people saying they are struggling for money, especially now, would be grateful of them I’m sure.

Our local ones are open but just taking donations on certain days/times. Often a Thurs/Friday so they can quarantine for 3 days.

I ring to check what they want - books, toys etc

I sort bags and label if just for rag man.

I know they have found stuff suitable as I can see it for sale when I go in.

Some charities will collect furniture for free as well.

Freegle is alive and well and is a good way to send off excess stuff - cat/dog homes always take old bedding and towels.

Calm down, Oldsu !!

This was well before any pandemic, just normal times. All I’m suggesting is a cheery, “Thank you!” Or “Really sorry, we can’t take any more donations at the moment because of space/lack of volunteers - please come back next week/try Save the Seals down the road” .

I have passed on a few bags of hardly used toys and games to two single mums locally, by putting them up free on Next-door. They were so pleased to have them, and I was very pleased to be able to clear my cupboards, give the toys another life, and not have to throw them away.

I only had to put a couple of pictures up, and when they came, offered them whatever else they might like to take :-)

Also - ring local primary schools and nurseries - a lot of them like games/books in good condition

They also often have spare clothes cupboards which always need trousers/jumpers, school shoes, PE kit and trainers, wellies even socks and decent pants (primary sees a lot of accidents of all kinds!).

We have passed a lot of stuff on this way. There are sadly always kids who come from families who don't send them with all the right stuff.

A cupboard of spares is a useful thing.

Women's refuges are another place to think about.

There are also refugee charities who ship things to countries where there are a lot of people with nothing but the clothes on their backs.

There's Smalls for All and Give up and Make up too.

Small gifts might just give another woman confidence for her future.

a question about Facebook marketplace... if I post something does it appear on the timeline of my friends, or only for those who follow Marketplace.

I don't really want all my friends subjected to pics of my cast-offs!

@IrmaFayLear

Calm down, Oldsu !!

This was well before any pandemic, just normal times. All I’m suggesting is a cheery, “Thank you!” Or “Really sorry, we can’t take any more donations at the moment because of space/lack of volunteers - please come back next week/try Save the Seals down the road” .

And then you get a mouthful of abuse, I know I have been helping my DH whilst on Furlough, I personally have had things thrown at me, been called 'rude' because I have told someone something they don't want to hear, in my 'real' job I am operations director for a multi-national company yet when I am in my DHs shop I am treated like a piece of shit, people don't want to hear a shop cant take donations, they are not interested in the reason why, they don't want to come back next week, and there is a large possibility that they have already tried 'Save the Seals down the road and have been turned away so are already pissed off. No I wont 'calm down' when I see what my 71 DH has to put up with at the moment, when I find out his lovely 22 year old assistant manager has been going home in tears due to the level of abuse she was getting, when I read posts on a charity managers FB page from people with 10-20 years experience in the business also admitting they have been going home in tears due to people being so rude and obnoxious to them.

All the charity shops around here are still closed. I've got a small mountain of books in my car that I want to drop off but can't find anywhere to take them. Praying for one of those charity bags to be dropped off!