How YOU can help us increase our Open Hours

When inquiries are made to why we aren’t open more hours/days,  our quick answer is we’d need more volunteers. You might find it surprising to know that more than anything our open hours are limited by how well our visiting residents follow the rules and the extra work it takes us to remedy issues when they don’t.  

Currently we have around 100 volunteers on our roster.  Some are there only on specific open days or only special collection days.  Others prefer to work only on nonpublic workdays to sort, shelve and test items for reuse.   Some of our even less visible volunteers do tasks such as managing social media, volunteer scheduling or data analysis and reporting, repair or transportation of items or serve on our Board of Directors.  A few volunteers are there up to 6 days per week because they handle a broad variety of things.  

We are open a few hours a day, a few days per week.   However, for every hour we are open at least another two or more are necessary for additional handling of what you dropped off.   It’s possible this could be reduced if you could:

-Plan to minimize your time on site.  Traffic will be less congested and slow if you can. 

• Sort and prepare your items at home.  Emptying and flattening cardboard boxes, sorting paper from containers etc or removing packing material and freezer packs from cardboard boxes and styrofoam at home means you’ll need less time with us.   
• Pack so you only need to make one trip around the site.  We have a map on our website.  MAP.  Pack so your first items being dropped off are the last items in your vehicle. 
• Have your ID out, payment ready and pack the vehicle so we can easily assess items or even bring us a list if you did not pack your car. You will be asked at Check-in what is in your car/boxes, so please confirm with the packer what is there.  See our website to check Drop Off Fees  especially if you want to pay in cash.  If planning to pay with cash – PLEASE bring small bills.
• Do not exit your vehicle if it’s blocking other traffic.  Pull over and park.    
• Consider not arriving in the first 30 minutes when the line tends to be the longest.

-Handle your items for reuse with care.  You made the effort to bring it, don’t abandon it. 

  Items being left outside

• Please ask a volunteer if you do not know where an item goes and when they give you instructions, please follow them.   Abandoned items often degrade before we can get them to the right location if they need to be inside.  Other items are often too heavy for one person to move far after hours.  
• If your item is incomplete or non-functional let us know so it can be handled properly.
• When possible, if you have an item you know you cannot move by yourself, bring extra muscle just in case we are short staffed that day.   

Reuse/Resource Building – your LAST stop on the way out

• Pack your boxes so they can be easily handled.  This means 30lbs or less, with securely taped bottoms and lids that close.
• If you are including sharp objects, please wrap them so we are not accidentally injured.
• If your item has dirt, food, unknown residue on it – wash it or trash it at home.
• Please stop dumping lots of small items into a box with other random things.   If you group smaller items, such as parts to a game, pens/pencils or craft supplies in smaller boxes, bags, elastics etc we can get them shelved faster with less handling.

If you could follow these rather simple instructions, we might be able to do more with the same volunteers for longer hours or we might be able to cut back on the number of volunteers on a given day in order to add another day or set of hours to the weekly schedule.