Have Fun, Do Good: Host a Donation Drive

This post is written by Aleigh, @GoodwillSP, from Goodwill Industries of the Southern Piedmont.

In addition to helping eliminate clutter around the house and keeping gently-used items out of local landfills, donating to Goodwill truly changes lives in your community. A donation of just one working computer can turn into 5.3 hours of career counseling at Goodwill, and a collection of 30 donated items translates into four hours of job search training. Pretty impressive!

It’s amazing the impact that just a few donations can have in your community—why not get the whole neighborhood involved by hosting a donation drive?

Here’s how to do it:

• Get organized. Appoint a “donation captain” to be the main point of contact between Goodwill and your neighborhood or school.
• Get the kit. Ask your local Goodwill for a donation kit, including postcards, donation bags, and other supplies that will help with promoting your event and getting organized on the big day.
• Plan. Is your neighborhood already planning a group yard sale? Schedule your donation drive for later in the day or the day after, so that items that didn’t sell end up in our stores—not back in your homes creating clutter!
• Promote. Let people know that the donation drive is coming up so that they can plan to donate. Neighborhood newsletters, emails, and neighborhood signs are all great ways to get the word out.
• Make it fun. Offer coffee and donuts to early morning donors, or lemonade and cookies in the afternoon. Take pictures 
• Donate! Goodwill provides a donation trailer that will park in a specified spot that offers easy access to donors. At least two Goodwill team members will be on-hand to accept donations and hand out receipts for your tax-deductible donations.

At the end of the day, your neighborhood will be full of clutter-free homes, and you’ll have some serious bragging rights about the good work you’ve done for your community. In fact, if you go to our new Donation Impact Calculator, you can select the items you donated to find out exactly how your donations changed lives.

Want to host a donation drive? Call your local Goodwill (find yours at http://locator.goodwill.org) to get started!

Pre-Garage Sale

We've been really busy with college visits and out-of-town guests, but we’re finally getting organized for our Garage Sale.

My husband and I decided to divide and conquer. He took the garage and miscellaneous shelves/storage areas in the house while I weeded through closets, one by one.

My husband did a good job cleaning up some dusty furniture, file cabinets and sports equipment no longer in use. My daughter definitely had an overstock of baby tees and blouses she could part with. I found a ½ dozen prom and bridesmaid dresses and a full dozen of nice dress slacks my husband hasn’t worn since we got married.

     
 

Combine that with 3 sets of old dishes, 4 sets of matching bedding, a small library of paperback books, a TV, boombox and stereo and I think our driveway is full.

We now have an almost empty closet we can now use for seasonal clothing. 
And remember the teenagers room? Messy room   Look at it now!

 

This is exciting!  We bought in-expensive dot stickers at the office supply store to price everything and bright neon cardboard for signs. I’ll let you know how it goes.

How to Sell Clothing at a Yardsale?

My husband and I combined forces with our friends for a yard sale this fall. We had tons of stuff and quite the variety: home decor, electronics, speakers, tv's, dvd players, purses, shoes and all sorts of other jazz. The first thing we had to do was go through our house to decide what was going to be in the sale. Purging is something that is tough for me because I'm always scared I'm going to get rid of something I will need "someday" (which of course never happens). This time around I did a pretty good job, with the help of my husband encouraging me and reminding me that no, I will never need that bag, or that shirt, or those shoes ever again. One room at a time, we went through the closets, checked under the beds, looked in all of our storage bins, and designated one of our guest rooms as the yard sale room. We started this process in August, so as we found more and more things to sell, we placed them in the yard sale room. One night as the sale got close, we sat down and priced everything. We used masking tape and a red marker, that way we knew what was ours (our friends marked theirs in black marker). Our friends made some signs (below was after the sale, but thought I would show you the signs!), and the day of the sale finally came.

Even though it rained (despite the sunny forecast), we were prepared with canopies to cover most of our selection. The photo below was after the rain let up a bit, and my husband was brave enough to put the speakers out from under the canopy.

 

One thing we had plenty of was clothing, and we weren't really sure the best way to display all of it. We had shirts, sweaters, jackets, jeans, shorts, skirts and even a couple suits and bridesmaids dresses. As you will see from the photo, we gave it our best effort. (This consisted of a rope tied from a tree in the front yard to a hook on the front porch held up in the middle by a ladder. We hung the shirts on the rope, and we had all of the pants and shorts in bins on the ground.) 

 

We put out plastic hangers with our clothes, which was tough to remember to get them back before people walked off with them. I should have looked at more research first. This site had a lot of good tips: http://www.yardsalequeen.com. (This site, for example, suggested using wire hangers or hangers that you don't want back.) I thought I would get some ideas for our next yard sale on our toughest challenge this time around...what is the best way to display clothing items?