Here’s the geographic scope of our local Goodwill Organization turns out there is a network of 160 autonomously operated GW chapters in North America, and our network covers 51 locations, including five outlets, boutiques and roughly 40-odd stores. To this day, large blue rolling bins (measuring ( 9 X 4 ft.) are still used for everything but furniture, and filled with merchandise they weigh between 130-300 pounds a piece. The first GW Outlet in our area was located in the old Pendleton Woolen Mills factory on Highway 99 and everything was wheeled out in enormous bins, and the name stuck with regulars. Two, this generous community buys into the reduce/reuse/recycle way of living and they donate because they are committed to this sharing principle (and recognizes the importance of keeping unnecessary items out of landfills).Īnd thirdly, donors give so voluminously because they’ve seen or heard what their donations do for their greater community and they like to contribute to that (and most donors are shoppers, too).įUN FACT: Most regulars refer to the Outlets as the Bins. One, so many people give so prolifically because of the convenience of the multitude of drop off centers throughout the area (surely your neighborhood has one, too). I asked Dale Emanuel, the very knowledgeable and savvy head of the PR department, why our stores are so well-stocked with such fantastic merchandise and she said that they can point to three reasons. The Portland area receives more donations than anywhere else, including such huge markets as Los Angeles and New York.įriends all over the country who’ve visited me are shocked by our world-class GW stores and they always ask me: Why are ours so chock-full of amazing merchandise while their own stores seem sadly stocked in comparison? I drop off stuff regularly at Goodwill drive-thrus, and I’m not alone the average donor gives over 60 pounds a year, making our Goodwill stores the jewel in the nationwide crown. I’ve now been in the back room of a couple Bins locations, witnessing first hand how it is that the Goodwill Industries of Columbia Willamette (GIWF) processes the roughly 235 millions of pounds of donations it receives yearly. I’ve been shopping at these Outlets for over ten years but it was only fairly recently that I’ve had the chance to look behind the curtain. I’ve found the modern day equivalent of Treasure Island. I’d inevitably run into someone with a metal detector and I envied them their ability to hone in on something valuable fairly quickly, and I’d share in their excitement as the machine would start to ping and zero in on a target. I was looking for some kind of lost treasure: a rare but intact shell, a piece of jewelry or perhaps a bottle with note inside. I’d often be found poking through driftwood, overturning seaweed clinging to strange objects, and occasionally digging under sand piles that looked unusually promising. Early each morning my family would walk the nearby beaches, and while my brother and sister would often scamper in the water, I’d have other plans. In the winter it would be in Naples, Florida and in the summer it’d be on the beaches in Cape Cod.īeach vacations would follow a daily pattern. Welcome to the Goodwill Outlets - otherwise known as “The Bins”.Īnd I’m going to show you what’s happening behind the scenes - and just a fraction of all the fun things my buddies and I’ve found there.Īs a kid, I spent endless hours beach-combing in the hopes of finding hidden treasures. Did you know that besides the dozens of Goodwill stores throughout our area there are a couple other locations in which even greater treasures exist, sometimes for well under a dollar?
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