Wanted: a person of good will

Published 8:00 am Saturday, October 1, 2005

Donated goods which fill a trailer a day in summer help others get better jobs.

Three leather baseball gloves, a “micro-go-round” for a microwave oven, two American Lung Association calendars, binoculars in their case, a tire iron, a ski rack and a Sonicare toothbrush.

Those were just a few of the items Bainbridge Island’s Goodwill trailer had received on a recent afternoon.

“This year seems there are more donations than normal, maybe because of the low (mortgage) interest rates so more people are moving and cleaning out house, said Warren Kramer, supervisor of the Goodwill donation stations in the Ace Hardware parking lot and another drop-off in Silverdale.

On Friday, Kramer put in his last day at the island’s drop-off point facility, retiring “at least for now” after a three-and-a-half-year stint.

The Bainbridge station is short two attendants now, with just a single person left to receive donations from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. every day. Applications are now being taken; the starting pay was upped to $8.25 an hour recently, to compete with the McDonald’s across the way.

Donations are waning a bit with the end of the summer months, when drop-offs double and the station fills up one 30-foot trailer almost every day. About twice a week, the station runs out of room and has to stop accepting donations.

In the summer, Kramer said, “you’ve got people moving and more yard sales. When school starts, you get clothes that kids have outgrown. Then it picks up again around Christmas. Kids bring in their old toys. People come get tax receipts before the end of the year.”

Kramer says he’s seen everything, a brown paper-wrapped painting supposedly worth $3,000, entire record collections, clothes still with their price tags on, a lot of nice bicycles, and an abandoned crafts collection of materials along with the finished and unfinished projects.

The items are sorted, priced and sold at Seattle Goodwill shops to fund job training and education programs.

Kramer’s successor is still sought.

“It can be boring, and it’s cold in the winter,” he said, “but you meet every kind of person, high school kids, older people, any kind of profession.”

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With goodwill

Those interested in applying for the attendant job should visit the Goodwill trailer in the Ace Hardware parking lot between 8:30 a.m. and 5 p.m. to pick up a job application. The site is closed for July 4th, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Day.