March 28, 2024

BBBSRI Urges Community ‘Stop Dumping Trash’ at Donation Center Locations and Bins during the Covid19 Pandemic.

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Rhode Island (Cranston) - After BBBSRI’s retail partner temporarily closed due to Covid19 on March 20th, the nonprofit immediately faced an uphill battle. The organization laid off 65% of its employees on March 27th due to cash flow issues resulting in retail closures and has needed to do a second round of layoffs last week.

“Our first issue was cash flow,” said Katje Afonseca, Executive Director of BBBSRI. “We continued our Donation Center Operations in hopes to get back to full operations in a few weeks. But quickly we ran into another issue – storage.”

BBBSRI has temporarily stopped free home-pick ups and has started to remove some of their clothing donation bins from the community in an effort to both save money and slow down the influx of product that has no place to be stored.

“We implore the community to get donations ready for BBBSRI, but to hold onto them until we can pick them up again,” said Afonseca. The product that the community donates is our lifeblood, we need it to be able to open back up to full capacity when the pandemic ends and we are worried that donors will find other ways to recycle their textiles during this time. If the community can wait for us, BBBSRI will be there to take donations as soon as reasonably possible!”

Over the past week BBBSRI has needed to rent additional dumpsters and pay fees to have trash that has been illegally dumped at their bins and donation center drop off locations. “During this time when we are not seeing any income, having to pay to have trash removed is a true detriment to the sustainability of our program,” said George Evans Marley, Director of Development and community relations at BBBSRI. Trash items include mattresses, broken furniture, and other items listed on DonateRI.org’s do not accept list. “The average cost to dispose of one mattress is $75,” said Marley “that’s about the same cost for us to run a prospective mentor’s background check. Every time we have to pay that fee, we are taking funds away from the mission.”

Anyone who notices a BBBSRI bin or donation center with excessive amounts of overflow are asked to reach out to the Dispatcher at 401.743.2180 or email Donations@BigsRI.org with a photo and location of the bin. BBBSRI will make every effort to clean the space up quickly, but asks for patience as its workforce has been significantly reduced due to Covid19.

Learn more about Big Brothers Big Sisters of Rhode Island and how to get involved at BigsRI.org, DonateRI.org or call 401.921.2434.

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