Hi Andy. Great info from several people on Lincoln Talk. To your question, American Red Cross and other bins specify clothing, so in other textiles are best donated to Bay State Textiles.
Alice is correct that the American Red Cross doesn’t give donated clothing directly to disaster victims. As Alice noted below, the entirety of the donations are given to a vendor. The vendor receives money by selling the donated textiles (to thrift stores or by weight for other uses), and the American Red Cross receives a portion of that money, which benefits their Disaster Relief Fund. Planet Aid donations are handled in a similar way. Their website says they get clothing to people in need, which may be strictly true; but their bins have terminology that indicates Planet Aid receives funds in the same way as the American Red Cross—by working with a vendor, which sells usable clothing to thrift stores, but does not give them free to people in need. Goodwill and Salvation Army are similar. If donated clothing is usable, it’ll be sold through their stores and benefit their programs. Unusable clothing is sold by weight (textile recycling) and yields money for their programs. There are many groups that accept usable clothing and distribute them free of charge to people in need. Those groups include St. Vincent DePaul; Cradles to Crayons (newborn to age 12); Circle of Hope (Needham), which distributes items free of charge to 25 area shelters and low-income programs in Boston; and Solutions at Work Cambridge/Children’s Clothing Exchange Cambridge/Green Street Shelter. All best, Sarah Liepert On Jun 26, 2023, at 12:46 PM, June L Matthews <matth...@mit.edu> wrote: I used to donate to Goodwill but now donate to St. Vincent de Paul. I have a feeling that Goodwill has changed its mission – they used to employ the disabled to repair clothing that they would then sell. The Goodwill stores that I have seen have become much more “upscale” in some areas, and I think that they only want ready-to-wear (or ready-to-use) items in good condition. I don’t know what they do with the inferior or damaged donations. Does anyone know? There is a big Goodwill donation truck outside Crosby’s market in Concord. June From: Lincoln <lincoln-boun...@lincolntalk.org> On Behalf Of Sara Mattes Sent: Monday, June 26, 2023 12:37 PM To: Alice Waugh <awaugh...@gmail.com> Cc: Lincoln Talk <lincoln@lincolntalk.org> Subject: Re: [LincolnTalk] Question re: clothing collection boxes around town St Vincent de Paul has a box in Weston, behind St Julia’s church and near Brothers All clothing dropped there goes fire to those in need as do proceeds from sales. Red Cross is notorious for having huge overhead and very highly paid Execs, and actually expending a small portion of revenues on actual aid. Sent from my iPhone On Jun 26, 2023, at 12:28 PM, Alice Waugh <awaugh...@gmail.com<mailto:awaugh...@gmail.com>> wrote: Hi Andy, I think in either case the material must be dry and machine-washed clean. The Red Cross clothing donation page<https://www.redcross.org/local/massachusetts/ways-to-donate/clothing-donations.html> says "items are then sold through a vendor and a portion of the proceeds benefits our Disaster Relief Fund" but doesn't specify that the clothing itself is given to disaster victims, or what condition it has to be in. I suspect though don't know for sure that the "vendor" may be some place like Bay State Textiles that repurposes material in any (dry) condition as described in this 2022 Lincoln Squirrel article under the "Textiles" subhead: “Where does it all go?” Part 3: Recycling beyond single-stream<https://lincolnsquirrel.com/2022/08/where-does-it-all-go-part-3-recycling-beyond-single-stream/>" Alice Waugh Editor, The Lincoln Squirrel<https://www.lincolnsquirrel.com> and The Lincoln Chipmunk<http://chipmunk.lincolnsquirrel.com> lincolnsquirreln...@gmail.com<mailto:lincolnsquirreln...@gmail.com> 617-710-5542 (mobile) www.watusiwords.com<https://www.watusiwords.com/> On Sun, Jun 25, 2023 at 8:27 AM Andy Wang <andyrw...@gmail.com<mailto:andyrw...@gmail.com>> wrote: I had a question regarding the various clothing collection boxes around town. I was under the impression that the ones that are from baystatetextiles (schools and transfer station) will take clean old clothing (e.g stuff with holes, tears, stains) for textile recycling. The other ones from Red Cross (transfer station and Stacy’s gas station) is looking for clean and usable clothing for distribution/sale. Is that correct? Thanks. Andy -- The LincolnTalk mailing list. To post, send mail to Lincoln@lincolntalk.org<mailto:Lincoln@lincolntalk.org>. Browse the archives at https://pairlist9.pair.net/mailman/private/lincoln/. Change your subscription settings at https://pairlist9.pair.net/mailman/listinfo/lincoln. -- The LincolnTalk mailing list. To post, send mail to Lincoln@lincolntalk.org<mailto:Lincoln@lincolntalk.org>. Browse the archives at https://pairlist9.pair.net/mailman/private/lincoln/. Change your subscription settings at https://pairlist9.pair.net/mailman/listinfo/lincoln. -- The LincolnTalk mailing list. To post, send mail to Lincoln@lincolntalk.org. 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