Updated 02/17/2010 05:12 PM
In-kind donations drop for charities across Triad
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WINSTON-SALEM – Charities across the Triad that depend on in-kind donations to serve the community are seeing steep declines in the number of donations.
The charities are asking for the community's help and they say you can make a difference in a very small way by starting your spring cleaning early. All three charities have locations where you can drop off your unwanted things.
Both the Rescue Mission and Salvation Army have a service to pick your donations up.
The Winston-Salem Salvation Army says its donations dropped 60 percent from the year before. Now officials hope people will start spring cleaning a few months early and drop off their unwanted goods.
“A year ago, we were probably doing 30 to 50 calls a day.” Salvation Army Warehouse Operations Supervisor Les Ashby said. “Right now, we didn't have any yesterday and on Monday, we didn't have any also.”
And the Salvation Army isn't alone. A Goodwill spokesperson says they've seen an 11 percent drop so far this year. For the Winston-Salem Rescue Mission, it's about 30 percent, and it's a drop the charities say they are feeling.
“It's pretty important, really vital to our overall capacity to be able to provide services for our residents and for folks in our community too,” Development Director for the Winston Salem Rescue Mission Mike Foster said.
And while the in-kind donations are down, officials say there are more and more people scouring racks looking for bargains.
“So that's one thing we continue to see is folks kind of coming to thrift stores as an alternative,” Foster said.
“But if there is nothing here to buy, they got to just go out and go somewhere else,” Ashby said.
And that's something none of these charities want.