Goodwill donations set year-end record
Donna Harrell and Dominic Harrell, 12, of Evans, donate a box of blankets and clothing to the Goodwill Emporium on Flowing Wells Road.
Photo by Donnie Fetter
Because of the generosity of the local citizenry and strong media coverage, Goodwill Industries enjoyed its most successful New Year's Eve.
On Tuesday, Goodwill received 76,000 pounds of goods through donations. That is a 41 percent increase over Dec. 31, 2001.
"We can only attribute that success to the people of the CSRA and the excellent media coverage we've been receiving," said Gordon Renshaw, director of community relations for Goodwill. "We've had a lot of people talking about us and it's had an effect. The volume increase in donations has been remarkable."
Goodwill also experienced a big donation day Dec. 30, receiving more than 53,000 pounds of goods.
To put that into perspective, before Dec. 30 and 31, Goodwill was averaging 21,000 pounds of donated goods per day during December.
Although 21,000 pounds sounds small compared to 76,000 or 53,000 pounds, it is still a 28 percent increase in donations over last December.
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"The news wasn't all good," said Renshaw. "Unfortunately, we had a higher ratio of trash product that we had to put to salvage. But it wasn't unexpected. Higher volumes of donations comes with higher salvage rates."
Renshaw said that the donations received in December will be processed and then distributed to Goodwill's five store locations in the CSRA: off Flowing Wells Road in Martinez, Peach Orchard and Wylds roads in Augusta, and in North Augusta and Aiken.