They’re second-hand stores, not places to dump your junk
Since the rise of secondhand shopping, and in the wake of Marie Kondo’s decluttering apocalypse, surprisingly very little education has been circulated around what happens to our unwanted ‘‘stuff’’ once donated.
Does it go straight to the shop shelf? Does someone wash the items? Who decides what’s good enough to sell?
As a long time second-hand shop rummager, I couldn’t bear not knowing.
If I was going to use this brilliant circular system, I wanted to know how it worked,
and how I could help optimise it.
During New Zealand Volunteer Week, I spent a day with Dove Hospice. My goal was to discover the behind-the-scenes reality of what really happens to donations after you’ve lovingly dropped them off at the door.
Dove Hospice supports people with life-threatening illnesses and, as an independent charitable trust, it relies heavily on the income made from its second-hand stores.
Six shops are dotted around Auckland, so there was no better place to learn the truth behind second-hand stores.
The thing that struck me when I sat down with the hospice team was the high percentage of volunteers.
About one in eight workers is a paid member of staff, the rest are volunteers who give up their time to support a cause they’re passionate about.
Sixty to 65 truckloads of donations are gifted to Dove Hospice every month and these items pass through four to five pairs of hands before ending up in new homes.
The first volunteers who come into contact with donations once they’ve made their way to the distribution centre are the sorters.
I spent the afternoon as a sorter, opening donated boxes and individually evaluating each item.
If the item can be reused or worn, it is placed on the sorting
table in a labelled box: belts, kitchen, scarves, clothes, kids’ clothes, stationery, and so on.
Rubbish – like the bag of grass clippings donated a few months back (what the heck?) – is sorted into metal recycling, paper recycling, electronic recycling, and landfill.
If the item is incredibly special, it’s given Top Shop status.
Top Shop is the final destination for the sorts of things that are too beautiful to put in a box alongside other knick-knacks.
Imagine vintage heirloom earrings, antique clocks, brand new headphones and designer jeans with labels.
The clued-up Top Shop crew evaluate each item properly, so these valuable items are sold for the prices they are truly worth.
That’s where the great stuff goes, but what about the not-so great?
When hearing about Dove Hospice’s reliance on volunteers, I thought ripped and soiled clothes would be binned to save precious time. This is not the case.
The team work hard to make sure they get the most out of everything donated, so they can help as many people as possible.
If it’s not sold in stores, they’ll sell it at the monthly garage sale, a favourite community event. If it’s not sold there, the lessdesirable clothes are bundled into large bags and sold in bulk on Trade Me.
Things like knives, scissors and appliances are also sold on Trade Me by someone who knows how to best move things on to happy homes.
Volunteers play such a big part in the centre and it’s not all about sorting, either.
One volunteer was a jeweller who donated her time to pricing and sorting the pieces before they went out to stores.
Her time makes the difference between a ring selling for $5 or for $500.
That extra money raised translates directly into more care given to someone in need.
Once each item has been sorted into a category, it will go through another pair of hands as it’s divvied up to the appropriate stores.
This final sorting process is an art.
Deciding which of the six stores the item will go to is imperative to get right.
One item may be highly sought-after in one area, but not in another. Someone may pay $50 for a watch in one district, but only expect $5 watches in a suburb nearby.
Every staff member I met had a special talent. The volunteer in the book section was a librarian who knew books like the back of her hand, and one retail assistant had a keen and experienced eye for collectables and has even donated items from the store to museums.
Each staff member had their own passion and spaces they curated. They’re the ones who make second-hand shops enthralling to plough through, beautiful to admire and exciting to visit.