PITTSBURGH – On a sunny Sunday afternoon in June, the procession of vehicles coming up to the back entrance of the Goodwill store on Banksville Road seems unending.
Drivers get out of their cars – or, in one case, a van – and disgorge the contents. Black trash bags bulging with clothes. Boxes of decades-old VHS tapes. Dog-eared paperback books. Household appliances that have been replaced by newer, more state-of-the-art models. Supplies that were used by now-departed pets.
All of the items that arrived at Goodwill that day, and on all the other days of the week, are just a teeny drop in the staggering tsunami of goods that Americans donate to thrift stores every year. Billions and billions of pounds of wares are dropped off at Goodwill and Salvation Army outlets, along with thrift store chains that have more localized footprints. Most of the people who part with their goods are relieved to be rid of them, whether it’s a grandmother’s commemorative plates, compact discs that haven’t been played since college or clothes that fit magnificently 10 years ago but are now a little snug.
But what happens to this flood of stuff once it has been liberated from basem*nts or attics? How much of it is actually sold and how much of it ends up being recycled?
Even though you would think that some items that get dropped off are beyond anyone’s interest or consideration, they all get a look, according to Andrew Marano, vice president of retail operations of Goodwill of Southwestern Pennsylvania. They are all part of what has been dubbed “the river,” and part of the job of Goodwill employees is to keep that river smoothly flowing. There’s a sign posted in the employees-only area at the Banksville store that outlines the principles that employees should abide by when they are sorting some of the 70 million pounds of goods the regional Goodwill handles annually. Along with having a clean store and providing quality customer service, employees are urged to process donations within 24 hours (48 hours on weekends). The principles also include the following: “If you have a pile, you have a problem,” “We aren’t in the storage business! Process and move your donations,” and “Don’t fall in love with your donations. … rotation pulls are critical to our success.”
Marano explained, “Everything gets a chance to sell first at a store.”
Indeed, once it’s been determined that an item is in acceptable condition and can be sold, it can be on the floor of a Goodwill store for a maximum of four weeks. In its third week, it is marked down. On its last day, it’s 99 cents. If that isn’t sufficient to get it out the door, it is sent to one of the three Goodwill “outlet” stores in the Pittsburgh region, where items are sold out of bins and priced at $1.59 per pound. Then, if it doesn’t sell at that store after a week, it is shipped out for recycling.
That means that if you visit one of the 31 Goodwill stores the Southwestern Pennsylvania branch operates on just a monthly basis, including stores in Washington, Peters Township, Belle Vernon, Mt. Pleasant and Uniontown, the merchandise will be entirely different on each trip.
“We want to be good stewards of our donations,” Marano noted. The proceeds from the thrift stores go toward services Goodwill provides, including job training and employment placement services.
And, perhaps surprisingly, Goodwill is also interested in items that it might not ultimately put up for sale. Take clothes that are tattered and torn – even if your first assumption is to toss it in the trash or use it as a rag, for Goodwill it’s usable because it can be sold to textile recyclers who can refashion it for everything from fill for couch cushions and car seats to rubberized playgrounds.
Items that are immediately identified as having value to collectors or could be sold at higher prices are put on sale at the website ShopGoodwill.com. This week, it was selling a yellow solitaire diamond ring for $2,975, a vintage copy of a Stradivarius violin for $121 and a 1904 edition of Edgar Allan Poe’s works for $57. Still, some rare and pricey items can still evade detection. A painting by David Bowie inexplicably turned up at a Canadian thrift store a couple of years ago; a signed print by Pablo Picasso was unearthed at a Columbus, Ohio, thrift outlet in 2012; and a photo of the 19th-century outlaw Billy the Kid was among the things found in a box at a California thrift store. The estimated value of the photo is $5 million.
Closer to home, a bat used by Harold “Pie” Traynor of the Pittsburgh Pirates sometime in the 1920s and 1930s was pulled from one of the bins at the Heidelberg outlet store in 2017. It was sold for $2 and is worth thousands of dollars.
Goodwill of Southwestern Pennsylvania experienced a huge spike in donations when the COVID-19 pandemic was at its depths, since people had time to spend at home and take care of long-delayed chores. It has since stabilized, according to Marano, but the area where goods are sorted at the Heidelberg store, one of the outlet locations, underlines the sheer volume of Goodwill’s donations. On a recent Friday morning it was a hive of activity, as items were shifted and sifted.
At first, he couldn’t help but look at what came in, said Randy Klocke, the store’s assistant manager. Now, however, “I don’t see it anymore. We move as fast as we can to get things out to the floor.”
The Society of St. Vincent de Paul, a Catholic nonprofit lay organization that has a handful of thrift stores in the Pittsburgh region, including Uniontown, operates under the same type of guidelines that Goodwill does. An item is typically for sale at a store for three weeks at full price, then is marked down by 50% in its fourth week, and is $1 on its last day, according to Bryan Engel, director of operations and marketing for the Society of St. Vincent de Paul. The Society also passes goods along to individuals or families in need.
“We say our products are great, because someone already bought them once,” Engel said.
City Mission, the homeless and rehabilitation shelter based in Washington, operates Hidden Treasures thrift stores located in Uniontown, Canonsburg, Washington, Rostraver, Monongahela, North Strabane, Belle Vernon and Waynesburg. Some of the goods that are donated to Hidden Treasures are given to residents of City Mission if they need furniture or clothing once they leave the shelter, and the proceeds of what is sold at the Hidden Treasures stores goes toward City Mission programs.
Goods are sent out to the Hidden Treasures stores from a 48,000-square-foot warehouse and distribution center in Canton Township. Bales of clothing are also there, awaiting pickup by a recycling firm. Formerly a Jessop Steel plant, the warehouse now houses an eye-opening array of goods that come from donations to stores, at the warehouse and from 25 donation boxes throughout the region – bins full of toys, books and DVDs, tables covered with neatly stacked dishes, furniture, artwork and more. About the only items they don’t take are mattresses and television sets. The public will be able to enter the warehouse next Friday and Saturday for a sale. Hours are 8:30 a.m to 3:30 p.m. each day.
“They will line up on the hillside and all the way back to the parking lot,” said Mark Vinoverski, director of Hope Enterprise for the City Mission. “They come looking for bargains.”
Has it made Vinoverski think a little differently about brand new consumer goods that look so shiny and enticing at the mall or big-box store? After all, they are most likely one day to be in a warehouse like the one the City Mission operates.
“I just wish I’d been aware of thrift stores when I was younger,” he said. “When I was raising my kids, I would have shopped at a thrift store.”
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