Thrift Store inundated with garbage

Volunteer Liz Heindrichs showed Morinville News some of the empty paint cans that were dropped off after hours. – Lucie Roy Photo

by Lucie Roy

The Midstream Thrift Store, located at 9922-101 Street, has received a lot of unwanted donations lately. The drop-offs are occurring when they are closed, on weekends, and even in broad daylight. While Midstream encourages donation drop offs, they want to show respect for people who come to the store to buy items, and selling wet; unusable items does not bode well to that end.

Volunteer Liz Heindrichs showed Morinville News some of the empty paint cans that were dropped off after hours and a dirty deep fryer with grease and oil still lining the bottom of it as two examples of the unwanted items received of late.

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“Lots and lots of messes lately,” she said. “It was a heavy weekend for drop-offs, and some of the stuff was tarped, and that was nice. Buts lot of stuff [was] not tarped and got wet: the books, the couch.”

Heinrichs said the time the volunteers spend taking stuff to the dump is time taken away from the store and programs the Midstream offers.

“This is [happeing] every year, but I feel it is getting a bit worse,” Heinrichs said. “For a while, we used to have the shed, and it was not quite so bad because we stored winter stuff in there. But now we are limited for space. The sea can contains furniture and at the back, it has Christmas and Halloween stuff. The Box-all is for electronics, part of a government recycle program, and they picked it up when full.

Heinrichs said people are sometimes offended because items wind up in the garbage. Beyond supplying the Thrift Store, the Midstream has passed items on to several other groups helping those in need.

“It is a dirty shame to see items wasted and the time and money that could have been used for programs is used to clear someone’s garbage that they dropped off,” Heinrichs said.

Monies generated from Midstream Thrift Shop sales helps community members in need, and supports several community projects, including school lunch programs and the annual Santa Store.

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2 Comments

  1. This is a non profit organization that helps our community. All volunteers ! They shouldn’t have to deal with this .

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