St. Vincent De Paul loves to accept donations, but many of the items dumped lately during off hours are downright "filthy and disgusting," the organization's president said.
The local thrift store has been deluged in recent months by unwelcome items left when no one is around.
"We can't continue to process people's junk for them," said Alice Reed, one of the center's volunteers.
Soiled mattresses, unusable exercise equipment and no end of broken furniture are just some of the unwanted items that the center must pay to have hauled to the dump.
"We don't even accept furniture," said Reed. "We don't sell it and we don't have anyone to fix it. Most of our volunteers are women in their 70s and 80s."
The problem was so bad on Monday that the society will have to pay more than $100 to send the mess to the waste disposal site.
To make matters worse, people come and go through the items, taking whatever is decent and spreading things around. Cats visit as well, making messes on the furniture. By Monday morning, Reed said, "The place looks like a dump."
"We do need proper donations," she continued. "We depend on them. But we need to be here to let people know what we can use."
There are large "No Dumping" signs in the areas where people are leaving their refuse.
St. Vincent de Paul accepts donations Monday through Friday between the hours of 10 a.m. and noon. Volunteers, especially strong ones with trucks, can call 637-7998 to offer their help.
Jeff Gatlin Jeff Gatlin is a staff writer at The Hollister Free Lance. You can call him at (831) 637-5566 or send him an email.
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