By Julia Giordano, EcoFellow
EcoBuilding Bargains relies on donations from homeowners, contractors, wholesalers, and retailers to keep our store running. While we always encourage donors to bring their donated materials directly to us at 83 Warwick Street in Springfield, some donations are just too big to haul yourself. Luckily, we offer a free pick-up service in our very own 16’ truck.
When you call us to schedule a donation pick-up, we don’t necessarily add your stop at the first available time; we schedule our pickups geographically to be efficient with both our trucking staff’s time and our fuel. However, we try to get your materials off your hands as soon as possible. On days when we have multiple pick-ups (which is almost every day!), our trucking staff starts off at the farthest pick-up location and drives back towards Springfield as the day progresses.
We ask that donations be accessible outside the house for pick-up – that way our trucking staff won’t have to traipse through your home to retrieve your donations. They can be left in a garage, on a porch, in the yard… anywhere with easy access! You don’t even need to be home at the time of the pick-up, although our trucking staff will often give you a heads-up phone call when they’re on the way.
Once the day’s pick-ups are finished, the truck heads back to EcoBuilding Bargains to be unloaded. Depending on how full the truck is, unloading it into the Receiving area of the store could be an “all-hands-on-deck” situation. Items are removed from the truck at our loading dock and brought into Receiving for pricing and cleaning before they hit the sales floor. We make sure to do our research so we know the value of each donation and are able to price it to give you a good deal.
After everything has been cataloged into our computer system, we send out receipts to our donors, either by email or mail as requested. Since EcoBuilding Bargains is a nonprofit organization, all donations to us are tax-deductible.
From Receiving, donations are moved onto the showroom floor where our customers can purchase them. Some items stay on the floor less than a day before they sell! We try to keep our website updated with Hot Items, and we post the best of the best on our Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest pages.
For more information about donating, you can call us at 413-788-6900 or visit our website at http://ecobuildingbargains.org/donate/. Make sure to visit us March 27-30 at the Western Mass Home & Garden Show at the Big E in West Springfield!
