Clothing Donation Thieves

Whenever I clean out my closet and discard clothes that no longer fit me (too many cookies!) I take my clothes over to the Walgreens parking lot and put them in a big drop bin for the homeless.

I am not sure if I am going to continue this practice. Brian and I have seen, on several occasions, people climbing into the big bin. They pull all of the clothes out, spread them all over the place and rifle through them. The box has a big 4' by 1.5' slot at the top and was clearly designed to try keep people out of it but they can still fit.

I know that I am giving the clothes to the homeless anyways, in some form or another. However, it just makes me feel strange knowing that some homeless people are stealing clothes from other homeless people.

This makes me about as uncomfortable as my trash. People go through the trash outside the building. Usually people are only looking for cans and bottles to trade in for cash. It really forces you to start keeping or shredding documents.

Any thoughts? Am I just being stupid? Do you think I have a valid reason to stop putting my discarded clothes in that bin?

Comments

Anonymous said…

Frankly, I'd keep putting them into the bin - someone will get good use out of them. Anyone desperate enough to climb into that dumpster to rifle through the clothing must be pretty down and out:) Besides, I've seen the donations people at Goodwill searching for the plum items during drop-offs. I'm sure it happens everywhere that you'd take the clothes you no longer need. Better than putting them in the trash - sounds like they'd meet the same fate there anyway!!

2:20 PM

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