In Woodstock, Ont., The Salvation Army won’t be accepting after-hours donations. “It’s not that we don’t want the community’s donations, it’s that they are being stolen, wrecked or people are dumping garbage,” says Vanessa Scotney-Page, director of community and family services at The Salvation Army.
Last year, dumping costs ate up $30,000 of the Army’s budget. But, the biggest problem with after-hours donations is that people often steal the items before staff can process them.
Surveillance cameras are set up to monitor the drop-off area, but these don’t seem to deter the culprits.
Will the new chains across access routes be a deterrent? What should the Army do?
August 10th, 2009 at 10:03 pm
I look at it like this if anyone is going through the donations outside and risking the embarrassment of being cought then they must need it? And when i donate i hope it goes to someone who is in need and cant afford to pay for clothes etc. Is that not the whole idea? What makes me angry is a worker for sally ann loading up a cube truck of perfectly good things telling me its all going to the dump because it had been thrown about the night before. and when a woman asked for a childs pair of shoes brand new he flatly refused saying that if the stupid people new how to read they would no better than to leave it when the store is closed. I just feel its become a little too much of a business than charity dont get me wrong the stores are a great thing for everyone but lets not forget about those who dont even have a dollar for food never-mind clothing.
August 20th, 2009 at 10:37 am
I have been working at the Salvation Army Thrift Store for a few weeks, and here is what I found out:
People drop off donations after the store is closed, it rains overnight => all goes to the dump.
We do not have the facilities to wash stuff, dry stuff, clean up stuff.
I found a beautiful microwave in the donations, but inside it had 3 years worth of splatters caked onto the surfaces => it goes to the dump
If you would like to donate used stuff in good condition, PLEASE drop it off, when the store is open, so we can bring it inside. Or call us for pick-up.
If you have the time to volunteer, please come by and give us a hand.
Thank you!
August 21st, 2009 at 8:26 pm
I’ve been Assistant Manager at a very busy Family Store here in Australia for the past 3 years.
Unfortunately, it’s not the needy who are stealing the donations. We have serial pests taking what they want (usually NOT clothing, but toys, furniture, electricals, collectibles) and many of the one-off thieves are passers-by who see something nice and think “oh yeah! I’ll have that!”
It’s a well-advertised fact in our community that if someone IS in need, they can come into our store and we will help them with what they need, without embarrassment or judgement.
We’re there primarily as a Christian welfare service, a community service, a point of ministry and a helping hand. Our prices match this mission (where else can you buy a kitchen table & 4 chairs for $50?). But if someone genuinely can’t afford something at those prices, we help them.
It’s a sad fact, however, that we live in a very greedy, self-centred society. Our store is frequented by hoards of collectors who have even physically fought one another over items in the store. The majority of our thefts, I believe, are by these kinds of people.
But overall, it’s great to serve God in this manner and see people in genuine need getting what they need for their families at affordable prices.
August 24th, 2009 at 8:24 am
I have been a Store manager for the Salvation Army Australia Eastern Territory for 10 years. The problem of after hours donated goods theft has been of a big concern for me for the whole of this time.
I often work late at night and Saturday afternoons, and have seen many incidents of people interfering with donated items. I don’t mind so much when it’s a genuinely needy person, but sadly the thieves are are usually vandals or professional scavengers.
I’ve seen the same scavengers night after night, pulling their vehicles up at our front and back doors and collection bins, to see what has been left out. I have challenged them and warned them to stay away with threat of prosecution.
These people will steal goods to sell at markets & auctions, even though they have jobs, and live in nice houses.
I love working for the needy in our community, and pride myself on running a clean, cheap and honest Store. However I am very disappointed with those who will take advantage of charity and steal for their own benefit.
I serve God in this form of ministry, and I know that he loves even these people; but it’s the sin of their greed that God detests. In the same way I hate to see greed in people, but my prayer is that they will come to know Jesus as their Lord and Savior, and then come and join us in helping the needy.
August 24th, 2009 at 9:04 am
Further to my earlier comment.
As I said, this issue has troubled me for 10 years. I would not even try to stop people donating after hours. For we have to be grateful for their gifts and fit in with their busy lifestyles. It is difficult for working people to be able to drop off their donations during our operating hours, or to be available to meet the pick up truck at home.
We have fitted dummy cameras to the outside of the building which has had a small effect on the unwanted visitors, and I believe has deterred rubbish dumpers significantly.
A wise Christian mentor of mine once told me that I should gracefully accept both the good and the bad donations, smile and thank the donor. I find it hard sometimes, but God has blessed our Store so abundently that I know I am doing the right thing. Yes we have to dump or recycle some unsuitable stuff, but the costs are acceptable. In fact we have managed to greatly reduce our waste costs in recent years.
To further deter theft and dumping, my assistant and I take turns checking our Store on weekends, taking in the goods before they can be stolen. We have put in a third collection bin, to help with excess. We make sure our bins are empty on Friday, and sometimes empty them over the weekend, according to the amount for that week. This reduces what is left in the open. As payment for doing this, we have a day off during the week.
There will always be problems, that’s the nature of the service we provide, and according to the sinful world in which we operate. We just have to deal with it the smartest way we can. Refusing donations from good hearted people just because it is convenient for them to drop them off after hours, is not the way to solve the problem. This approach may cause more harm than good, as we have a duty to our Lord to be gracious always, even when the world is using us as a rubbish dump.
August 25th, 2009 at 11:00 pm
As the Manager of The Salvation Army Thrift Store in New Liskeard, Northern Ontario, I am amazed at the generous donations made by the people in such a small community. The problem for us is not necessarily that items are being looked through, but that bags and boxes are emptied and strewn across the property which is not what our donors like to see done with their items and is creating a huge mess for all of us. In order to keep our prices low, expenses also have to be kept to a minimum, when paid staff has to spend much of their time cleaning up the messes, it takes away from their time spent with customers and other important aspects of their day. In any event, the working folks only have time after hours to do their drop offs and I’m hoping that by raising public awareness of the situation that those doing the damage will learn to respect the property of those donating and those cleaning up.
Our satisfaction comes in seeing the smiles on our customers face when they’re able to cloth all their kids, maybe even buy a few toys and some household items. We have a great team, awesome volunteers and Officers, so
together we handle whatever comes our way because at the end of the day, what matters the most is that we have served the Lord and provided to others.
A sincere thank you to all our donors, customers and volunteers. Without you, we couldn’t do what we love to do.
September 10th, 2009 at 9:17 am
I work in a Salvo’s store in the capital city of Brisbane Qld Australia. We have a massive problem with people going through donations left after hours. It is so sad and upsetting to find that unwanted scavengers loot through clothing, bric-a-brac, electrical goods and furniture looking for valuables that can be sold at markets or on ebay. Donors become upset and don’t appreciate their donations being mistreated this way. I have caught several people trying to dump their household rubbish in our parking area because they don’t have the $7 to take their rubbish to the dump. When asked to move on they dump it on the footpath in front of the shop! Sometimes we get wonderful surprises of human excrement amongst the scattered donations. It’s not fair to me, our staff or our volunteers when this happens. What can we do about it? Cameras don’t stop them because they just cover up their number plates. We cannot afford to have security guards or staff on call 24-7. We have put up signs now telling would be donors what could possibly happen to their donations and leave the onus up to them. We leave out a list of our opening hours and the number for our pick up service. It seems a lot more people are happier knowing that their donations will be sold in the shop and not thrown away because of reckless looters. We are open 6 days a week, from 9 to 5 and the majority of people are able to get in to us. Lucky for us that we are all in this together and we can help each other out.
September 17th, 2009 at 4:23 pm
Perhaps the solution is to put up a sign saying, “smile, your face will be seen on facebook”. There is nothing like public shame as a deterrent and all you need is a camera (with or without video). People who truly need the items will not be rooting through at night; they will come back in the day. It is unfortunate that a few people truly manage to damage so many, when so many people are genuinely trying to make a positive difference. Just a thought.
September 24th, 2009 at 5:22 pm
You say that you have to change your hours of donation because of theft.. and that it’s not that you don’t want donations..
I have a question.. what about a Salvation Army Store that does not take donations? or they do but it never makes it right into the store, the items are dropped off inside their door, the workers put only ’some’ of the items in the store and the rest never make it to the shelves for sale??? they are only placed out on the curb on garbage day?
This really makes me upset, cause the people give it to them from the goodness of their hearts for the people in ‘need’ yet they turn it right out of the store and onto the curb!
What can be done about that please I really need to know
October 6th, 2009 at 9:02 am
We appreciate all our donations thank so much to everyone. I have a answer to why not all donations make it to the shelves. The staff looks through all donations, but if the donations are broken, obscene, or stained we can’t put that on the shelves. Customers don’t want to buy things that are damaged and soiled this is what we throw away. See its not that we don’t want the donations its just that we want to make sure that the products we put out there for our customers will be of use to them. I understand that some people see it as us throwing away their donations but it is not like that at all we appreciate everything we get its just we can’t keep everything like I said we need to provide our customers with products they can use. For example we recieved a box of t-shirts that had obscene words written all over them we can’t put those out on our shelves it just wouldn’t be right.
October 10th, 2009 at 9:09 am
I worked at a second-stage shelter for women and their children, where the focus was on job training and obtaining employment, and we received donations, too. While there were some wonderful things, in fantastic condition, there were also entire shipments of clothing that had obviously been pulled out of Granny’s closet when she had passed. These items were old, worn, and the styles were inappropriate for wearing in an office, let alone impressing a potential boss in an interview. We also recieved quite a few items that had not been recently cleaned, and were musty and smelled! Unfortunately, we had to dispose of I would say about 60% of our donations as unusable. We did try and sell the clothing to a “rag man” – who would at least put them to some use and recycle the material into other useful objects, but otherwise, it would cost us money to dispose of these items. We also had an issue where there were only residential staff on duty over night and on weekends, and items would be dropped off at the front door, where no-one would see them until the office re-opened. These items would not only be picked over, but they would get rained on and animals would sometimes get into them and pee all over them, too, and it gave the building a very poor image!!!
We also received food donations, and our kitchen staff had to be very careful about that, too. There is a reason for expiry dates, and many companies that donate food will do so to get a tax write-off rather than lose money due to food going bad. So, you could end up with gallons of milk, but have to consume it within a day or two or throw it out! The Department of Health gave us the same standards to follow as a restaurant, so we could never serve “expired food” – not that we’d want to, anyways!
Certainly, I would never want to discourage people from donating good, re-usable items! Just think twice before getting upset at things being thrown out. It may not be as “usable” as you think!!!
November 9th, 2009 at 6:45 am
Hi Everyone. I have read in here a lot things, however there still seems to be a lot of un-answered questions. I am a little suprised that someone from the Salvation Army has not posted those answers.
First of all – who the heck am I? I drive a truck for the Salvation Army NRO in the city of Oakville. I see a lot of what you all have been talking about.
The Stores need people to donate while they are open so that we can process the donations in a quick timely matter. When they are dropped off at night, very nice and beautiful things are distroyed by weather and vandals. It breaks my heart to see this happen. We desperately need these donation to help fund the many social programs that the Salvation Army uses to help our communities.
Once something has been given to the Salvation Army, it becomes their property to try to use it for the good of all, when someone comes along and takes it without asking, that is stealing.
Very little is wasted at the Salvation Army. As a Truck Driver, I take my truck to the Thrift Stores and remove the donations that are more then the store can process and take it to a large warehouse in Oakville. The Recycle Center in Oakville will go through ever single piece and we try our best to make the most out of everything. We recycle metal, clothing and electronics.
Many types of kitchen-wares, furniture and nice clothing are sent back out to other Thrift Stores to be sold.
So, if you donate something to the Salvation Army and you don’t see it being put in the store you donated it at, it is most likely being sold in a store a few cities away. Even things that are broken, we can recycle the material.
All in all, the amount that ends up in the waste, is very little compared to the amount that is re-used.
The large amount of nice good things that are recycle and re-sold by the Salvation Army keeps the large amount of waste that would have ended up in a landfill. Thank God it didn’t.
I personally would like to thank you all and all others who donate to the Salvation Army to help it help us all.
God Bless.
November 28th, 2009 at 2:02 pm
I’ve been donating to the local Salvation Army for years and have seen what is being referred to here many times, namely items being “stolen” from the site or being damaged before the store is open.
The solutions seems simple:
1 Hire a small evening shift [1-2 people] to process evening donations thereby minimizing garbage dumping and vandals etc. The sales from more undamaged/unstolen donations and lowered garbage dumping costs would more than offset staff costs.
2] Having a sheltered area [awning] for donations so they dont get ruined by bad weather.
November 29th, 2009 at 2:42 pm
why not design a designated after hours area and set it up ony so certin size items can only be placed once its put in it cant be removed
To stop people from dumping garbage cameras in one thing but you must have the area very well lit so if someone at night tries this it will be to abvies to passers going by
I realize each and every store is diffrent there for each store needs a special set up
We start with the store that are experancing this problem and move forward by step.
Right now i,m out of work i,m very experance building operator can build and create quit genius ideas maybe i can help ,This would certenly make me feel good helping someone elese ,Lossed my mom this year all alone maybe i can help please e-mail me if you would like some support on this issue i would like to make a diffrents.
Fred Pickering Ontario roperfd@aol.com
December 10th, 2009 at 7:19 pm
I think the challenge of ruined / picked-over / weatherbeaten donations might be met through alternate donation hours / dates.
For example: one night per week accept donation only throughout the evening hours. People move residences on the 1st and 15th of every month; so coordinate special openings around those dates.
Have advertised weekend donation dates every month with extended hours such as 8am-8pm to maximize useable donations. Close the store for restocking if need be on these dates.
Provide a sign outside of every donation location listing items that cannot be accepted – and local alternatives for these.
My .02 cents.
Sandra .H., Langley, B.C.
January 22nd, 2010 at 11:26 am
I read a sign in the salavation army store that said don,t steal just come talk to the manager,I think that’s good.
February 25th, 2010 at 3:58 am
I believe that the idea of exterior video cameras and very large signs stating that the premises is under surveillance go a long way as a deterrant to theft in the instances cited above. But it does not solve the problem of vandalism. It takes a community to report the vandals. Be vigilant. Look for a License Plate and report it to Police. In Ontario Schools we have a Zero Tolerance Policy for Violence. Why not Zero Tolerance for Vandalism? If not jail time and restitution, why not several days of the vandal marching in front of the Store he/she vandalized wearing a very large sign stating the crime to all passersby? Our Brampton Salvation Army no longer provides pick up service for furniture so it presents a problem for those who would like to donate good useable large items but can not find someone willing to take their items to the local Drop Off Center. We also have another Christian Thrift Shop organization accepting donations and they have a problem with items dropped off at their front door. Their discards are often partially salvageable and can be donated to another of our Christian Churches who provide a weekly Food Bank and Free Store. Since they have no room to store weekly donations, their donations go to their Garbage bins but are often picked over by Scavengers who arrive after the Staff and Janitor leave for the day. On one of my moves from one apartment to another, I had an entire van load of personal property stolen by a Scavenger. My Landlord and 4 of his family members had put all of my possesions to the road. I had called a friend who was sending me 2 people in 2 vehicles to take the items to a local Rental Unit.The Police were called so that I could gain entry to the Unit. More items were found inside the apartment. The Police did not charge them with theft and the Scavenger who stole the van load was never found. In spite of this experience I decided to turn this into something good for the community and kept the Unit to store donated items which could be given to people who needed them while setting up first housing and getting away from living in tents, cars, etc. I am an environmentalist and I truly hate to see good useable products go to the road only to be crushed in the Garbage Tracks. Our Dumps have become a major problem. No one wants them in their back yard.
June 13th, 2010 at 7:39 am
What I find equally annoying is the amount of well-off people shopping at Salvation Army and other various thrift stores. If you make a decent wage and can afford to pay, you should not be taking discounted items away from people who otherwise cannot afford them.
God has blessed me with a good well paying job, untill I am not, then I will leave the thrift store bargins for the less fortunate.
Our local thrift store (not Sally-Ann) has two full time employees and a rental bin dedicated to sorting through junk, that people drop off. If you wouldn’t buy it, it’s junk and don’t give it away.
JP
June 29th, 2010 at 3:51 pm
I have been employed with the Salvation Army Thrift store for 10 years. I cannot believe how many people writting on here have absolutely no idea what Salvation Army is or does. It is not a store for poor people only. Without shoppers buying everyday and making our quota we would cease to exists. The money that the thrift store makes goes to the church and the soup kitchen to name a couple of things. Without thrift store money we would have no soup kitchen. The people would have no food. We have something called Family Services. This is for people who cannot afford anything like clothes or furniture. These people can come in and get a voucher that will give them things that are a necessity. We strongly encourage everyone to shop at the Salvation Army Thrift Store, without you our friends would have no support of any kind. I suggest that people do research on the Salvation Army so they are more prepared to make statements that could harm what we are about.
Also as far as leaving donations after hours, I would like to have cameras out there to record licence numbers so these people could get a littering fine. It causes alot of stress and unnecessary confrontations, as well as costing us alot of money to dump the majority of it.
July 10th, 2010 at 10:53 pm
One can build a large fence with $30,000…just thinking;)