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Giving season: What not to donate

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. – It’s the time of the year for giving. Giving presents to loved ones and in some cases giving back to our community through donations, but one second-hand store is reminding people that there’s some things they can’t use and don’t want.

Goodwill said its pretty common for them to get donations they can’t resell.

In some cases, that can be bloody clothes and even guns, but there’s a pretty big list of things Goodwill can’t take as donations.

“Broken appliances, outdated appliances is one, because automatically those are things that might be prone to the landfills. Things that are not resell able: soiled materials, anything that has a hazardous element to that, so your paints, your chemicals, those types of things, plumbing, construction supplies. Those things are not things we can typically sell in our resell centers,” said Bradd Hafer, Goodwill spokesman.

It’s not uncommon for them to get donations like that.

“A lot of times when people are thinking of decluttering their homes, they’re not thinking about separating things that are usable from non-usable. It’s kind of a single stream donation approach, but the hard part of that is: if it’s not resell able in our stores the value of that is compromised and then it compromises the value of what we can bring to individuals that we’re serving through our programs and services,” said Hafer.

There are also strict rules about what is and isn’t tax deductible.

“Anything that’s donated that has a taxable value also has to have a sellable value to it, so if you’re donating trash that you would normally take to the curb, the IRS does not see that has a tax deductible item,” Hafer said..

They said there is a lot of need in our community this time of year.

“That’s what these donations proceeds actually go for. You’re actually being a change agent when you’re donating to Goodwill,” Hafer said.

Goodwill said this is one of their busiest times of year for donations, because people are trying to clear space for the new things they’re getting for Christmas.