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Thrift shop burdened

Unsaleable items having financial impact on local thrift stop.
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Lachlan Labere/Eagle Valley News United Church Thrift Shop volunteer Bernice Hyam organizes donated items.

Donations are always welcome, but not all donations are wanted at the United Church Thrift Shop.

The Sicamous thrift store is feeling the same pressure other Shuswap thrift shops are under when it comes to people dropping off unsalable items and other refuse after hours – items that should instead be going directly to the landfill. These include everything from used mattresses and toilets to bags of household garbage. This leaves the thrift stores holding the bag, so to speak, and having to pay for its disposal.

Bernice Hyam, a longtime volunteer at the United Church Thrift Shop, said the shop spent $8,000 in tipping fees last year to dispose of unsaleable items left there. She explained that’s money the shop couldn’t put back into the community with scholarships, support for the food bank and other donations.

“We’ve had toilets before and one time, the people that were hauling the stuff to the dump, they picked up the toilet and somebody had used it,” laughs Hyam. “You know, the volunteers that work here, they’re kind of hero people because they deal with this and go on smiling and being pleasant.”

Hyam said volunteers will sometimes go through bags of garbage left at the shop to find out who dropped them off, and then return the bags to their rightful owners.

“We don’t dump it, we just take it and say this is yours, you take it to the dump,” said Hyam.

Hyam and her fellow volunteers in general are very appreciative for all the support the store receives from the community, and the items that are dropped off that will, in one way or another, help people in need.

“I think we have a good system, people compliment us on the work we do and we’re volunteers, so we must like what we’re doing or we wouldn’t be here,” said Hyam.