After-hours dumping costing Marble Falls Library Thrift Store
Marble Falls Library Thrift Store staff and volunteers arrived July 27 to discover all this strewn about the loading dock. While the store, which benefits the Marble Falls Public Library, accepts donations for resale, officials say the facility has almost become a dumping ground after hours as people drop off items that are well beyond use — such as these sofas. Instead of selling them, the thrift store will be forced to pay to have them hauled off. Those funds would otherwise go to the Marble Falls Public Library. Other times, the staff discovers somebody has rifled through after-hour donation items, strewn things about and made off with sellable items. Donors would be best served to drop off items during business hours. Staff photo by Daniel Clifton
DANIEL CLIFTON • EDITOR
MARBLE FALLS — Virginia Cervantez and Dottie Yturri love the mission of the Marble Falls Library Thrift Store. Everything the store makes through sales of donated items goes toward the Marble Falls Public Library.
But the store has a few problems, and the two hope the community can help them out.
“We have a problem with people dumping the stuff off that they don’t want, and it’s stuff we know and they know we can’t sell,” said Yturri, who is the store assistant manager. “Then we have to pay $85 to have it picked up because it doesn’t fit in the (trash bin). That’s money coming out of our already tight budget.”
It’s not just people dumping off unusable items; it’s also people making off with items. The thrift store, located at the intersection of Avenue J and Third Street, accepts donations during its business hours of 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Monday-Saturday.
But many people will drop off donations outside the thrift store doors or on the dock after hours — and some of it disappears.
“We’ve had people tell us they’ve dropped some real nice things off, but we never got them,” said Cervantez, the store manager. “And we’ve lost out on some pretty nice items.”
While staff members have tried to dissuade the thefts, Cervantez said the best way for your donations to make it into the store and onto the shelves and support the library is to turn them over to a store employee or volunteer.
“It’s best to make donations when we’re open so we know we get them,” she said.
As for the dumping issue, the two are appealing to people not to use the store as a place to dispose of unwanted and unusable items.
“We are spending at least $85 a month to have those things picked up, and sometimes it’s twice a month,” Cervantez said. “That’s money that could go to the library.”
Yturri said they find things such as sofas with torn-up fabric and stuffing hanging out.
“And mattresses,” she said. “We can’t even accept mattresses because we can’t sell them.”
Hauling off the mattresses, well, that takes funds out of the store’s underlying mission.
“Everything we make goes straight to the library,” Yturri added. “Anytime we pay to haul something off means the library loses out.”
Go to www.marblefallslibrarythrift.com for more information on the thrift store.
daniel@thepicayune.com