Salvation Army’s West Kelowna staff were greeted by unwanted bike and lawn mower parts this morning.
Cpt. Darryl Burry, who oversees Kelowna’s Salvation Army thrift stores, said more and more people are coming to the branches to dump unwanted items.
“This (morning’s) situation was lawnmowers and bike parts. Last week, it was mattresses and couches,” he said.
Burry said part of the problem is more people are now also dropping off items after-hours.
“Sometimes, (the items) are destined for the dump anyway and it takes the staff a lot of time to clean up and actually take them to the dump.”
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He said that oftentimes, the donations are too damaged to be salvaged or sold at the stores but because many are dropped off after-hours, staff have to use store hours to try to assess the items and take the others to the dump.
“The teams already have a full load of things to sell and salvage. They don’t have time to assess if the bike and lawn mower parts can still be salvaged and sold,” Burry said.
He’s asking people to come to the stores and donate during opening hours or to go to the donation drop-off centre.
“If people can donate during business hours, we can see if those things can be sold so we can use the money to support our many programs like food banks and shelters.”
For a list of business hours and addresses for store branches, follow this link.
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