Oh, donations!
When we closed for our annual shut down last year, weeks became months before we reopened. We reorganized, we moved sections, we got things DONE!
While this year’s task is less Sisyphean, we still have lots to do. We will be sorting, shelving, and organizing so that when you come back in September, you will notice the refresh and shopping will be a breeze. In fact, the work began yesterday!
Everything we sell in the Barn is donated, so we count on donations from members of the community and beyond. Both the Book Barn and the Bargain Barn love your donations.
The Book Barn accepts up to three shopping bags* full of books per person, per day (hang tight for more on that, below). We really want to share why we have these guidelines, so you understand the method behind the madness.
When we receive donations at the Book Barn, they are handed to one of our volunteers and go directly into our donation room. Fortunately, we receive donations all day long and the room fills quickly. However, we have limited volunteers to help us sort, so it takes us some time (sometimes days). We sort books by genre, and then: in the case of fiction, by author; in the case of non-fiction, by topic; in the case of memoirs/biographies, by person; in the case of children’s, by age, then type of book. There’s more to sort, of course, like cookbooks (first in cooking, then by food type or celebrity chefs), with sub-genres in history, health, religion, etc. We also accept games, records, sheet music, DVDs, so there is a lot to sort.
Once things are sorted, they then have to be moved out onto the floor. It’s quite a job.
Similarly, with the Bargain Barn, donations are left inside the front door in our designated donation section, then our volunteers have to sort through the donations, check for damages, and price each item before moving it to the floor.
This is why we have the *three shopping bag rule, because with big tubs of donated books, we can’t move them until we sort them, and if we have to stack them, we can’t lift them. It gets difficult fairly quickly. Also, as we have limited volunteers, we often don’t have enough people to process items quickly.
When you donate to the Book Barn and ask for your bags back, it makes things tough. We have to unpack the books and stack them somewhere so they don’t fall and get damaged or dirty. This is why we are no longer able to give you back your bags.
When donations are left outside our doors, they sometimes get taken or damaged. We’ve seen boxes and bags left over the weekend that are damaged from rain, or filled with leaves, spiders and the like, due to weather. When this happens, we can’t sell what’s been donated. This is why it’s so important that you hand your donations to one of our volunteers (Book Barn) or bring them into the Bargain Barn (thrift items) and place them in the designated area.
We are so grateful for all of your books, media, and thrift items, and we want to move them to the racks and shelves to sell them so that we can continue to make money to donate to the charities we support.
If you’ve made it this far, we are so thankful and grateful for you and are really excited to see you when we reopen on Wednesday, September 3rd. Please share this out, spread the word about our Barns, shop and donate. But most importantly, enjoy these last two weeks of August! We miss you already!
