The old is turning into gold for some non-profit groups in the West.
Recycling of used clothes, toys, household items and vehicles has become a good way to raise funds.
This fall, the Saskatchewan branch of the Canadian Diabetes Association became the latest addition to a 10-year alliance with Value Village, a second-hand goods story.
Through a program originally started in British Columbia, the diabetes association asks the public to donate items that it will pick up and take to the stores.
Christine Smillie, executive director of the Saskatchewan branch, said the group hopes to raise $150,000 a year through this plan. While regular fund-raising is “doing well here,” Smillie said more people are getting diabetes – five percent of all Canadians – so there is a need to increase the budget for programs and research.
Read Also
Canadian Food Inspection Agency red tape changes a first step: agriculture
Farm groups say they’re happy to see action on Canada’s federal regulatory red tape, but there’s still a lot of streamlining left to be done
While the fund-raising project will start in Saskatoon and Regina, Smillie said it should expand to rural areas soon. The diabetes association plans to arrange a truck to visit interested communities on a regular monthly schedule.
Saskatoon Value Village manager Darin Schweder said recycling has always been a good idea and it is becoming popular.
“You can just see by the number of garage sales that people like to visit.” He said two-thirds of the store’s business is clothing.
Two years ago the Manitoba Women’s Institute began a similar recycling project to raise money and assist the disadvantaged. Each local WI collects donated clothes and household goods, and arranges for them to be trucked from rural Manitoba into branches of Goodwill Industries in Winnipeg and Ashern. In return, the MWI receives an annual grant of $2,500 for its contributions.
Helen Rigby, MWI president, said the cheque is not tied to the volume collected for Goodwill, a charitable organization set up by a United Church minister in the 1930s. She said MWI went into the project because it offered “an opportunity to work throughout the province and that would give us visibility.” She said other bonuses are that recycling is an “in” thing that provides jobs for the disadvantaged and allows others to buy household goods at reasonable prices.
Money lying around
The nuisance of a junked vehicle abandoned on your property can be turned into value for the Kidney Foundation of Canada.
Each of the foundation’s branches in the western provinces is running a program under which people can phone and donate their old vehicles. An auto wrecker is authorized to pick them up from the donors’ yards and either give them a $50 tax-deductible receipt or more if the vehicle can be resold instead of scrapped.
Angela Konkin, of the Saskatchewan branch of the kidney foundation, said the group hopes to process 300 cars this year, its first year in the province. In Alberta, the kidney car has been a successful project, raising about $300,000 last year.
Konkin said recycling is popular because people get “the wreck off the lawn and we clean up the environment” while raising money for kidney research, patient services and organ donor promotion.
