Riverview, N.B., thrift store’s donation bin suffers repeated damage

While many people spent Monday celebrating New Brunswick Day, Cory Thibodeau and his 10-year-old son we’re left working overtime to clean up somebody else’s mess.

“Somebody had broken into our bins and just went through all of the bags that were in there and then tossed everything around,” said Thibodeau, executive director for ERGON Thrift.

He woke up to messages from the community alerting him to the mess. He says it took about an hour-and-a-half to clean it up with the help of his son and a neighbour.

Unfortunately, this is becoming a common occurrence at the local thrift store, which also offers on-the-job training for adults living with mental illness.

“About two months ago we had something very similar happen,” Thibodeau said. “Somebody broke into our bins and the mess was about three-times the size of what it was. My store manager was out there for about two hours cleaning up and then as staff arrived into work they started to help her, but it took about two-to-two-and-a-half hours to get it all cleaned up. About a month ago we had somebody vandalize the front of our building with a spray paint tag.”

Thibodeau says these types of incidents have caused many businesses to get rid of their parking lot donation bins completely, but he isn’t willing to explore that option for ERGON Thrift.

“One-hundred per cent of our store merchandise is from community donations. I feel that if we get rid of our bins and have it as a drop-in donation process, we would lose probably half to 75 per cent of our donations because a lot of our donations come in over the weekends,” he said.

In the past, he says ERGON was spending around $15,000 a year to buy used clothing to sell, but that doesn’t make sense when the community is so supportive with donations.

However, the donations do come at a cost when people help themselves to the items inside the bins after hours or drop off garbage instead of donations.

“Sometimes we can’t salvage the clothing because it’s left out in the rain, so it’s garbage and that’s money that we have to spend to dispose of it. In the last year I’ve had to go from having our dumpsters emptied once every two weeks to once a week because of the amount of garbage and stuff that we have to get rid of,” he said.

On top of money, it also costs time.

“The purpose of our organization is to provide support to adults living with a mental health challenge and every minute that we have to spend on stuff like that is minutes that we take away from our clients,” said Thibodeau.

Moncton-based thrift store Enviro Plus also offers employment training programs for marginalized people, and it says it used to deal with similar incidents.

“For some time it was basically every Sunday. We would come in Monday morning and we’d have stuff at the backdoor,” said Jean-Claude Cormier, board chairman for Enviro Plus.

The store is open six days a week for donations and also does local pick-ups, but that still wasn’t enough to stop people from leaving donations or garbage after hours.

“Sometimes we don’t even bring it in, especially if it rained, so then we have to put it in the truck and bring it to the dump, to Eco 360. That’s basically the name of the game because we don’t want any chances, we don’t want to take any risks on those and if they didn’t bring it on week days, why would they come on Sundays if it’s still good?” said Cormier.

Earlier this year, he says they installed a $14,000 security system with cameras both inside and outside the building, and last fall they put up multiple “no dumping” signs.

“Since then we had maybe two dropoffs on Sundays. Very, very minor compared to what it was before,” he said. “A lot of businesses around in this surrounding area had to put (up) cameras. We were one of the last ones in this area to install security cameras and I don’t wish that on anybody, but sometimes you have to do what you have to do to make sure that you’re secure and safe.”

Thibodeau says they’re exploring a security system option in Riverview, but it’s not as simple as buying a bunch of cameras.

“That’s money coming out of my operating budget, which takes away from being able to provide services, so I have to weigh the cost of the services that we’re providing versus the messes being made in our parking lot,” he said.

While it’s discouraging to deal with a few unusable donations or people making the donations unusable by throwing them out of the bin, both ERGON Thrift and Enviro Plus say they rely on community donations and are thankful for the positive support they’ve received over the years.

“We never buy stuff, except the cleaning materials we need and tools, but the rest is all given to us by the community and we are fortunate and it’s an opportunity for me to say thank you,” said Cormier.

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