(ABC4 NEWS – West Jordan, Utah) “Warning – Dad Joke Alert” …When was the last time you went on a GOOD treasure hunt? In this Utah Success Stories feature I found out where there is a WILL there is a way. Where am I? Goodwill, of course.
Admit it, you probably have clothes or other things in your house that you haven’t used for a long time. I put together a bag of clothing that I wanted to go to a good home and drove to the new Goodwill Easter Seals location in West Jordan. By the way, did you know that Goodwill takes donations seven days a week?
Blanca Tirado, the Retail Director for Goodwill, greeted me with a smile. She showed me the processing part of their store and told me; “This is where the magic happens. Once we get the donation from the donor, we quarantine the donation for 24 hours. Because of COVID-19 we have to make sure they are safe once we put them on the sales floor.”
I asked Blanca to put me to work. “We are going to have you sort some clothing. So you can get the experience of how we do it here.”
They sort the donations based on clothing and basically everything else. The workers there were great to welcome me. I started in the clothing sorting line.
I was surprised to see that some clothing donations still had original sales tags on them. There was a pair of jeans that had a plethora of holes. I held them up and asked Blanca; “Do I keep this one?” She replied with a grin and said, “Yes. Teenager love these kinds of these.”
Lee Manwaring is the Assistant VP for Retail at Easterseals Goodwill. I asked him to describe who comes to shop at their four Utah locations. “Our customers are really anybody. We have the customers that are in need. They are on a fixed income. But then we have customers that come in because they are looking for the treasure.”
Back to the sorting room for me. I pulled a pair of women’s designer jeans out of a donation bin and Blanca explains; “These are Brand new jeans. Originally eighty dollars.” So how much would these sell for here? Blanca continued; “They have the same blanket price so they will go for $5.99.” At 5.99. I would consider that a treasure.
You never know what you’ll discovered at Goodwill. Clothing for the entire family, shoes, accessories, dishes, pretty much everything you have in mind. On a personal note, you may have noticed that I’m the TV personality that wears hats. I was pleasantly surprised to find a new hat rack.
Donated products are also processed at their distribution center in Salt Lake City and send out worldwide.
Lee told me an interesting factoid; “Not only are we the largest recycler in the world from the standpoint of the merchandise that is coming in from donations. that recycling efforts really goes in towards supporting the world.”
Goodwill is a non-profit that puts the money back into local autism and senior back to work programs. Everything they sell is tax free.
Lee laughed and told me; “Unless you’re buying a snack item.” Okay, almost everything.