Goodwill stores to begin no contact donation drop-off
Pictured is the West Mifflin Goodwill store’s drop-off donation station.
Observer-Reporter
A photo of the Goodwill store on Jefferson Avenue in Washington prior to its opening in January 2013
Goodwill stores closed their doors when Gov. Tom Wolf ordered non-life sustaining businesses to shut down, but that didn’t not stop the donations from rolling in.
The governor’s stay-at-home order apparently prompted a surge in spring cleaning, resulting in a deluge of donations being left outside of each of the 27 Goodwill stores in the state’s southwestern region.
“It didn’t even take 24 hours before donations just continued to be dropped off at each of those sites and began piling up – to the point we could not handle the volume of the donations,” said Mike Smith, president and CEO of Goodwill of Southwestern Pennsylvania.
Now, Goodwill has received a waiver from the state to implement no-contact, self-service donations at each of its 27 locations. Donors who would like a receipt for their donations will be able to scan a QR code posted at each store or visit www.goodwillswpa.org/receipt to obtain an electronic receipt.
Smith, who lives in North Franklin Township, said bins will be placed outside of the stores. Each bin will be designated for different kinds of donations, such as clothing or housewares. Larger items such as furniture will be able to be left outside.
“We have one attendant at every store. Their charge is to bring those donations in on a regular basis,” Smith said.
Stores will be open to accept drop-off donations from 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. daily.
Locally, Goodwill has locations at 89 Jefferson Ave., Washington; 3492 Washington Road, Peters Township; 140 Finley Road, Belle Vernon; and 1003 Mall Run Road, Uniontown.
“Washington saw a significant number of donations,” Smith said, adding that the Peters Township store is one of its busiest for donations.
He said the stores began to chain off their parking lots, but that didn’t stop people from leaving items outside.
“Their natural thoughts are donating toward organizations like Goodwill. More people are doing that cleaning and we’re seeing donations more than ever,” Smith said.
Rain left many of those donations essentially useless for Goodwill, and the items had to be thrown out.
“We had to spend a significant amount of money to clean up the centers,” Smith said.
In the application for waiver, Smith pointed out the potential environmental impact of discarding so many donated goods. He said the stores in the southwestern region keep about 20 million pounds of goods out of landfills every year, and he asked the governor’s office to consider how much more Goodwill keeps from being thrown out statewide.
“You’re talking about 160 million pounds of materials that could be going to the landfills,” Smith said.
Goodwill makes most of its revenue from the sale of donated goods. Even though the stores won’t be currently able to sell the goods collected, the shutdown came at a time when they were low on donations.
“What this is going to allow us to do is build our inventory of donations. When the governor does lift the stay-at-home mandates, we will have those donations that we can utilize to begin selling again,” Smith said.