February 28, 2025 • 15 mins
We spoke with Richard Borer President of Goodwill Industries of Southern New England about how the organization supports the community.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Good morning, Thank you for listening to Community Access. My
guest today is Richard Worer. He is the president of
Goodwill of Southern New England. Good morning, thanks for having
me my pleasure. I love Goodwill.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
My children love Goodwill. I always can walk in there
and get several things and feel good about myself when
I leave.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
That's awesome. I remember when I was interviewing for this
job twenty years ago. I was telling a story about,
you know, my mother. I come from a big family
in the city of Milford, and my mother had a
truck come to Goodwill and all the neighbors came over
and they said, isn't that nice? You know that you're
having pick up of all your stuff and my mother,
so what do you mean pick up on getting delivery?
(00:43):
So like a dining room set and sofas and stuff
that we did at that time and we still do.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
And that years later you worked for that, right who knew?
Speaker 2 (00:52):
And I was saying earlier, you know, I was in
the mayor's office. I was the mayor of the city
of west Haven from like ninety one until two thousand
and five, and the first call I got was to
interview for this position. And I've been here now for
twenty years and wow, best phone call I ever.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
Got for people who don't know what is Goodwill all about?
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Okay, So you know, Goodwill is a great organization that
started about one hundred and thirty years ago out of Barley. Yeah,
and it was a minister that during that time there
was a lot of migration from Europe into our country
and not a lot of resources for folks. And you know,
people came ready, willing and able to go to work,
but they didn't have a lot of resources. So Edgar Helms,
(01:33):
the founder of Goodwill, started an organization that would take
things from people that are more affluent and then either
give them or sell them to people that were less affluent.
And so mostly people that were coming in that had
barriers to work or barriers because of the language, economic
barriers and stuff like that, to make sure that their
families were provided for. And it's still doing the exact
(01:55):
same mission that it did one hundred and thirty years
ago and started in Boston, now across the country and
around the world.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
So that's how it was created and what is the
mission today.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
So the mission is to help people that have barriers
to work find work. Our mission is not like a
lot of people think. You know, we're retailers in thrift.
That is just a way for us to fund our mission.
You know, for example, the organization that I run, we
have about one thousand employees. We're a fifty million dollar organization.
We get very little of state assistance or federal assistance.
(02:28):
We do get some, but of our fifty million dollars,
we probably get around three million from the State of
Connecticut to do drug and addiction programming for folks, and
Department of Developmental Services for training and for job coaches
to be with people that need assistance. And we also
do some ex offender work. But by and large, the
(02:49):
revenue forty five million plus that we get annually comes
from the generosity of people making donations in our stores.
We process those donations and that funds our mission. But
we're about job training and improving people their living conditions.
We got a call years ago from Mayor de Stefano,
who was the mayor in New Haven at the time,
(03:10):
about community re entry work, that people were getting left
from Department of Corrections without any resources, and what could
we do to help with the resources. So we do that.
We're pretty good at that also, and we have an
ex community re entry program that people would go into.
It's a six week training program after you've been released
(03:31):
that helps you to understand what the culture of work
is like as compared to the other environments that they
might have been in, and what your expectations are with
regards to work, your employer and your co workers. And
so we've had great success in that too.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
Have people discussed with you what kind of impact it's
had on their lives from working at Goodwill?
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Yeah, we get a lot of those stories and nobody
you know, I could sit here and ramble on and
I apologize if I am telling the story. But the
the best storytellers about Goodwill are the people that we serve,
and so that's why we try really hard. You can
go online and listen to some of the testimonials of
people that we serve, and we really feel good about
it and we are genuine about that. And we were
(04:14):
talking earlier about you know a lot of people just
think of Goodwill as a thrift store and they kind
of look at that as the business and you get
this donated goods, you know, we hire. Every Goodwill store
has between twenty and thirty people working there. Every Goodwill
store is usually in a location that we pay, you know,
pretty good rent, and we have to pay insurance and
healthcare and all these other things. So yes, we get
(04:37):
things donated for free. But you know, T shirts are
three ninety nine, pair of jeenes of six ninety nine.
It's still the best value in town, you know, for
people that want to shop thrift.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
Absolutely. I've donated several times, and just to share with people,
I fill up my car, my trunk, my backseat, and
I don't know if it's still like this, but I
would just drive to Goodwill and I would go around
the back and someone would actually help me take everything
out of the car, and then they'd give me a
piece of paper and say, how much do you think
all of this was worth? I believe for my taxes?
(05:07):
Is it still that procedure. It's the same process.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
Yeah, And we work really hard to make sure that
you have a good And I'm glad you're telling me
this because we work really hard to make sure that
people have a good experience, because if they don't have
a good experience, they might not come back, and they
might donate something that could really help the community. To
like a for profit or throw it away, which is
even worse because then it goes into a landfill. So yeah,
we do a lot of training for people to understand
(05:34):
and when the car pulls up, they should be out
there in a blue uniform to identify themselves as a
good will person, help you to assist, and then also
give you a tax receipt, and.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
You feel so good that you're giving these things would
have gotten thrown out, like you said, or just sat
in my closet and what's the point. And now somebody
else is a treasure to enjoy.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
That outfit that you were will be the next business
professional young woman wearing that outfit to get our first job.
And so we're we're really excited about it. Gets us
all excited when we do this kind.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
Of stuff and imagine the stories that the clothes could tell,
or the shoes could tell, or the furniture could tell.
Imagine that's amazing business suit.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
Your first you know, pair of professional attire shoes or whatever.
And people feel really good about it, and we really
work to help. And we also help people that are
in crisis, like if there's a fire, if there's some
kind of terrible crisis, and people are displaced. We help
with that. So all they have to do is call
us and we'll say what do you need, Well, we need,
(06:34):
you know, clothing for my family, and we need you know, essentials.
We give vouchers and certificates, and we do that through
the Red Cross or through any community that should call us.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
I was going to ask you if it's through the
Red Cross.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
Yeah, because that's great partnership.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
With That's got to feel good too, to be like
you're helping these people in need. You are anyways on
a daily basis, Right, You see that sign and you're like,
I have to go in. I don't care if it's
in Florida, you know, or in Milford. We're hover. It's
just wonderful.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
Yeah, yeah, and we really, we really enjoy doing what
we're doing. And like the closest store to here, Rocky Hill.
We're talking about the New Britain store. The two largest
stores in our chain. One is in Grotten and the
others in Norwich. Believe it or not, really, Yeah, those
communities really endorse it. On any given weekend, you know,
there's a line of people that want to donate and
(07:23):
a bunch of people that want to go shopping, so whatever,
those demographics really play well for us.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
If someone was interested in working there, what would they do.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
Yeah, So you can go to Goodwill of Southern New
England and go to our employment opportunities. We're growing organizations,
so we are hiring. We're hiring currently. We're looking for
truck drivers to transport some of our product. We're looking
for material handlers, and we're looking for two marketing people.
(07:54):
We want a marketing person that's going to help tell
our story to large corporations and companies throughout Connecticut and
Rhode Island. And we also want somebody that's going to
be developing large sites to go to corporations and maybe
have a like a spots store sometimes like in a
big company and a big plaza or something like that.
We'll do a spots store, or we'll have partners that
(08:17):
support us and a lot of the different things that
we do. So a lot of opportunity for us. Please
go to our website, Goodwill of Southern New England, look
at job opportunities and I think you'll be surprised.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
And how could everyday people help Goodwill.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
You know, typically when people are cleaning their closets or
when people are moving, Please give us a call. We'll
be happy to work with you with regards to getting
the donation dropped off or if needed, we'll pick them up.
We have venues ways to do that, to help you
to reuse and repurpose your stuff and do some good.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
And are you ever looking for volunteers.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
We do use volunteers. So volunteers Number one would be
on our board of directors. We have a board of
directors of about twenty eight individuals that are people that
bring different expertise to our board. They might be bankers,
or they might be retailers, they could be real estate people,
financial expertise folks. So we're always looking for new board members.
(09:22):
But also any of our stories you can volunteer and
you can say, you know, I want to kind of
give back to the community and help folks. So you
can go to any of our stores and they would
greet you and get your information and then you could
either be a greeter or you could you know, work
in the back, or you could help with some expertise
that you might have. Currently, the things that we're always
(09:43):
looking for volunteers is e commerce, So we have two
venues for e commerce. We have Shop Goodwill dot com
and anybody listening you can go to that website. I
think you'll be amazed at what's on that website because
it's every good Will across the country, and you could
put in something that you collected, whether it was a
Barbie or a g I Joe or hot wheels car
that you had as a young person and now you
(10:05):
want it back, or you know, wow, Yeah, you could
google any of that stuff on shop Goodwill. But we're
always looking for people to help us because not everyone
can know everything about an item, you know, and so
somebody might be really good with Rolex watches while somebody
else might be good with Lionel trains, you know, And
so we're always looking for people that have expertise. Musical
(10:25):
instruments is a big seller. The number one thing that
we sell online is legos, really, so we're always looking
for people that have some expertise that can help us out.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
When you say sell online, people can actually go online
to Goodwill and shop correct.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
So we have our brick and mortar retail stores, which
that's not online. You have to go there and go
through the racks and look at what you're looking for,
or you go to Shopgodwill dot Com and you plug
in what you're looking for, and then every Goodwill across
the country that has that item, it'll pop up.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
Stop it.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
Yeah, So if you're looking for a Beatles album or
something that you had and you know you want to
replace or something like that, every good Will across the
country that has that, it'll pop up and they'll ship
it to you.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
The best item I've ever gotten from there is a
bicycle trike, the three wheeler. My kids said, please, don't,
You're gonna embarrass us. I needed a three wheeler for
some reason. You know, they say, you never forget how
to write it bike. Well, I can't ride a two wheeler.
My core is off maybe and I wiggle and I
just can't drive the bike. So this was great. I
(11:28):
got a basket and a bell and I put little
flowers on the front. And it was the best thing
I've ever gotten from Goodwill. I absolutely love it.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
Yeah, we call it goodwill hunting. You know, you go
in there and you never know what you're gonna buy.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
That is so good at play on words from the
movie Goodwill Hunting. We do need to talk about all
of the merchandise I did mention some clothes. I mentioned
the trike, but for people who don't know, there's so
many I mean, VCR tapes, anything you can think of.
What do we have if you walk it.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
Into our typical store. When you first walk in, the
cash wrap will be up on the right hand side,
the will be on the left, and then the first
thing you'll experience on the left hand side would be electronics, DVDs,
you know, movies, training videos and all the you know,
electronics like that. And then along that wall would typically
(12:17):
then be housewares and linens and wall artwork and stuff
like that. The main part of the floor our shopper,
our demographics of our shopper is usually a woman, you know,
somewhere between forty and fifty that would like to shop.
So we make sure that we have at least sixty
five percent of our sales floor. We'll have women's items textiles,
(12:41):
you know, dresses, sweaters, pants, but also have accessories like
pocketbooks and shoes, and we try to keep the shoes
near the pocketbook so if all of a sudden you've got
a pair of shoes and then you see a matching
pocketbook or a belt or something, ancessories are right there. Too,
and then the men's department's a little bit smaller. To
be honest, you know, there's not by the time a
guy gets done with his jeans or something, they're really you.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
Know, they're done.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
Yeah, they're pretty much done. But there's still value to that.
So what happens is these things that we don't sell.
So everything that's donated, maybe fifty percent of the items
get sold. The other fifty percent is then salvage and
it doesn't get thrown away. It gets reused or repurposed,
and it might even go to our outlet store, it
(13:25):
might go to other thrift stores, or it could be
sold for rags like auto rags and mechanics rags and
stuff like that. But nothing gets thrown away. Even with
our housewares, you donate something electronics from your kitchen, and
if it didn't sell, we take the metal apart, We
sell the metal, we take the plastic apart, we sell
the plastic. The copper from the wires gets stripped and sold,
(13:48):
and so this creates employment opportunities for people, but also
funds our mission. And we're just really good for the environment.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
And when you say for me, nothing gets thrown away,
has such deep keep meaning in so many different ways,
whether it's inanimate object or an actual person. Right, nothing
gets thrown away. It's absolutely beautiful. Yah.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
And I'm glad you said that because we really that's
what we believe is, you know, nothing is disposable, and
especially not people. If people have had hard times or
made poor choices in their lives, we really believe in
second chances all the way around.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
I'm speaking with Richard Bohrer, he's president of Goodwill of
Southern New England. Thank you so much for sharing about
Goodwill industries. They can go to Goodwill dot org. But
what is the other of Southern.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
New England and Goodwill of Southern New England. Yeah, so
I would recommend that site because it's more local to
the Connecticut Rhode Island area, but you know, also Goodwill
dot org and then it will feed you to the
local Goodwills from wherever you're located. But shop Goodwill dot com.
The other site is Goodwill Finds. One is an auction
site and the other is by it now site, so
you'll see all types of items on there and I
(14:55):
think you'd be really surprised.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
Thank you for serving the community.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
Thank you so much for the opportunity to a large
story
Good morning, Thank you for listening to Community Access. My
guest today is Richard Worer. He is the president of
Goodwill of Southern New England. Good morning, thanks for having
me my pleasure. I love Goodwill.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
My children love Goodwill. I always can walk in there
and get several things and feel good about myself when
I leave.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
That's awesome. I remember when I was interviewing for this
job twenty years ago. I was telling a story about,
you know, my mother. I come from a big family
in the city of Milford, and my mother had a
truck come to Goodwill and all the neighbors came over
and they said, isn't that nice? You know that you're
having pick up of all your stuff and my mother,
so what do you mean pick up on getting delivery?
(00:43):
So like a dining room set and sofas and stuff
that we did at that time and we still do.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
And that years later you worked for that, right who knew?
Speaker 2 (00:52):
And I was saying earlier, you know, I was in
the mayor's office. I was the mayor of the city
of west Haven from like ninety one until two thousand
and five, and the first call I got was to
interview for this position. And I've been here now for
twenty years and wow, best phone call I ever.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
Got for people who don't know what is Goodwill all about?
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Okay, So you know, Goodwill is a great organization that
started about one hundred and thirty years ago out of Barley. Yeah,
and it was a minister that during that time there
was a lot of migration from Europe into our country
and not a lot of resources for folks. And you know,
people came ready, willing and able to go to work,
but they didn't have a lot of resources. So Edgar Helms,
(01:33):
the founder of Goodwill, started an organization that would take
things from people that are more affluent and then either
give them or sell them to people that were less affluent.
And so mostly people that were coming in that had
barriers to work or barriers because of the language, economic
barriers and stuff like that, to make sure that their
families were provided for. And it's still doing the exact
(01:55):
same mission that it did one hundred and thirty years
ago and started in Boston, now across the country and
around the world.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
So that's how it was created and what is the
mission today.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
So the mission is to help people that have barriers
to work find work. Our mission is not like a
lot of people think. You know, we're retailers in thrift.
That is just a way for us to fund our mission.
You know, for example, the organization that I run, we
have about one thousand employees. We're a fifty million dollar organization.
We get very little of state assistance or federal assistance.
(02:28):
We do get some, but of our fifty million dollars,
we probably get around three million from the State of
Connecticut to do drug and addiction programming for folks, and
Department of Developmental Services for training and for job coaches
to be with people that need assistance. And we also
do some ex offender work. But by and large, the
(02:49):
revenue forty five million plus that we get annually comes
from the generosity of people making donations in our stores.
We process those donations and that funds our mission. But
we're about job training and improving people their living conditions.
We got a call years ago from Mayor de Stefano,
who was the mayor in New Haven at the time,
(03:10):
about community re entry work, that people were getting left
from Department of Corrections without any resources, and what could
we do to help with the resources. So we do that.
We're pretty good at that also, and we have an
ex community re entry program that people would go into.
It's a six week training program after you've been released
(03:31):
that helps you to understand what the culture of work
is like as compared to the other environments that they
might have been in, and what your expectations are with
regards to work, your employer and your co workers. And
so we've had great success in that too.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
Have people discussed with you what kind of impact it's
had on their lives from working at Goodwill?
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Yeah, we get a lot of those stories and nobody
you know, I could sit here and ramble on and
I apologize if I am telling the story. But the
the best storytellers about Goodwill are the people that we serve,
and so that's why we try really hard. You can
go online and listen to some of the testimonials of
people that we serve, and we really feel good about
it and we are genuine about that. And we were
(04:14):
talking earlier about you know a lot of people just
think of Goodwill as a thrift store and they kind
of look at that as the business and you get
this donated goods, you know, we hire. Every Goodwill store
has between twenty and thirty people working there. Every Goodwill
store is usually in a location that we pay, you know,
pretty good rent, and we have to pay insurance and
healthcare and all these other things. So yes, we get
(04:37):
things donated for free. But you know, T shirts are
three ninety nine, pair of jeenes of six ninety nine.
It's still the best value in town, you know, for
people that want to shop thrift.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
Absolutely. I've donated several times, and just to share with people,
I fill up my car, my trunk, my backseat, and
I don't know if it's still like this, but I
would just drive to Goodwill and I would go around
the back and someone would actually help me take everything
out of the car, and then they'd give me a
piece of paper and say, how much do you think
all of this was worth? I believe for my taxes?
(05:07):
Is it still that procedure. It's the same process.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
Yeah, And we work really hard to make sure that
you have a good And I'm glad you're telling me
this because we work really hard to make sure that
people have a good experience, because if they don't have
a good experience, they might not come back, and they
might donate something that could really help the community. To
like a for profit or throw it away, which is
even worse because then it goes into a landfill. So yeah,
we do a lot of training for people to understand
(05:34):
and when the car pulls up, they should be out
there in a blue uniform to identify themselves as a
good will person, help you to assist, and then also
give you a tax receipt, and.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
You feel so good that you're giving these things would
have gotten thrown out, like you said, or just sat
in my closet and what's the point. And now somebody
else is a treasure to enjoy.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
That outfit that you were will be the next business
professional young woman wearing that outfit to get our first job.
And so we're we're really excited about it. Gets us
all excited when we do this kind.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
Of stuff and imagine the stories that the clothes could tell,
or the shoes could tell, or the furniture could tell.
Imagine that's amazing business suit.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
Your first you know, pair of professional attire shoes or whatever.
And people feel really good about it, and we really
work to help. And we also help people that are
in crisis, like if there's a fire, if there's some
kind of terrible crisis, and people are displaced. We help
with that. So all they have to do is call
us and we'll say what do you need, Well, we need,
(06:34):
you know, clothing for my family, and we need you know, essentials.
We give vouchers and certificates, and we do that through
the Red Cross or through any community that should call us.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
I was going to ask you if it's through the
Red Cross.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
Yeah, because that's great partnership.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
With That's got to feel good too, to be like
you're helping these people in need. You are anyways on
a daily basis, Right, You see that sign and you're like,
I have to go in. I don't care if it's
in Florida, you know, or in Milford. We're hover. It's
just wonderful.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
Yeah, yeah, and we really, we really enjoy doing what
we're doing. And like the closest store to here, Rocky Hill.
We're talking about the New Britain store. The two largest
stores in our chain. One is in Grotten and the
others in Norwich. Believe it or not, really, Yeah, those
communities really endorse it. On any given weekend, you know,
there's a line of people that want to donate and
(07:23):
a bunch of people that want to go shopping, so whatever,
those demographics really play well for us.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
If someone was interested in working there, what would they do.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
Yeah, So you can go to Goodwill of Southern New
England and go to our employment opportunities. We're growing organizations,
so we are hiring. We're hiring currently. We're looking for
truck drivers to transport some of our product. We're looking
for material handlers, and we're looking for two marketing people.
(07:54):
We want a marketing person that's going to help tell
our story to large corporations and companies throughout Connecticut and
Rhode Island. And we also want somebody that's going to
be developing large sites to go to corporations and maybe
have a like a spots store sometimes like in a
big company and a big plaza or something like that.
We'll do a spots store, or we'll have partners that
(08:17):
support us and a lot of the different things that
we do. So a lot of opportunity for us. Please
go to our website, Goodwill of Southern New England, look
at job opportunities and I think you'll be surprised.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
And how could everyday people help Goodwill.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
You know, typically when people are cleaning their closets or
when people are moving, Please give us a call. We'll
be happy to work with you with regards to getting
the donation dropped off or if needed, we'll pick them up.
We have venues ways to do that, to help you
to reuse and repurpose your stuff and do some good.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
And are you ever looking for volunteers.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
We do use volunteers. So volunteers Number one would be
on our board of directors. We have a board of
directors of about twenty eight individuals that are people that
bring different expertise to our board. They might be bankers,
or they might be retailers, they could be real estate people,
financial expertise folks. So we're always looking for new board members.
(09:22):
But also any of our stories you can volunteer and
you can say, you know, I want to kind of
give back to the community and help folks. So you
can go to any of our stores and they would
greet you and get your information and then you could
either be a greeter or you could you know, work
in the back, or you could help with some expertise
that you might have. Currently, the things that we're always
(09:43):
looking for volunteers is e commerce, So we have two
venues for e commerce. We have Shop Goodwill dot com
and anybody listening you can go to that website. I
think you'll be amazed at what's on that website because
it's every good Will across the country, and you could
put in something that you collected, whether it was a
Barbie or a g I Joe or hot wheels car
that you had as a young person and now you
(10:05):
want it back, or you know, wow, Yeah, you could
google any of that stuff on shop Goodwill. But we're
always looking for people to help us because not everyone
can know everything about an item, you know, and so
somebody might be really good with Rolex watches while somebody
else might be good with Lionel trains, you know, And
so we're always looking for people that have expertise. Musical
(10:25):
instruments is a big seller. The number one thing that
we sell online is legos, really, so we're always looking
for people that have some expertise that can help us out.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
When you say sell online, people can actually go online
to Goodwill and shop correct.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
So we have our brick and mortar retail stores, which
that's not online. You have to go there and go
through the racks and look at what you're looking for,
or you go to Shopgodwill dot Com and you plug
in what you're looking for, and then every Goodwill across
the country that has that item, it'll pop up.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
Stop it.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
Yeah, So if you're looking for a Beatles album or
something that you had and you know you want to
replace or something like that, every good Will across the
country that has that, it'll pop up and they'll ship
it to you.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
The best item I've ever gotten from there is a
bicycle trike, the three wheeler. My kids said, please, don't,
You're gonna embarrass us. I needed a three wheeler for
some reason. You know, they say, you never forget how
to write it bike. Well, I can't ride a two wheeler.
My core is off maybe and I wiggle and I
just can't drive the bike. So this was great. I
(11:28):
got a basket and a bell and I put little
flowers on the front. And it was the best thing
I've ever gotten from Goodwill. I absolutely love it.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
Yeah, we call it goodwill hunting. You know, you go
in there and you never know what you're gonna buy.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
That is so good at play on words from the
movie Goodwill Hunting. We do need to talk about all
of the merchandise I did mention some clothes. I mentioned
the trike, but for people who don't know, there's so
many I mean, VCR tapes, anything you can think of.
What do we have if you walk it.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
Into our typical store. When you first walk in, the
cash wrap will be up on the right hand side,
the will be on the left, and then the first
thing you'll experience on the left hand side would be electronics, DVDs,
you know, movies, training videos and all the you know,
electronics like that. And then along that wall would typically
(12:17):
then be housewares and linens and wall artwork and stuff
like that. The main part of the floor our shopper,
our demographics of our shopper is usually a woman, you know,
somewhere between forty and fifty that would like to shop.
So we make sure that we have at least sixty
five percent of our sales floor. We'll have women's items textiles,
(12:41):
you know, dresses, sweaters, pants, but also have accessories like
pocketbooks and shoes, and we try to keep the shoes
near the pocketbook so if all of a sudden you've got
a pair of shoes and then you see a matching
pocketbook or a belt or something, ancessories are right there. Too,
and then the men's department's a little bit smaller. To
be honest, you know, there's not by the time a
guy gets done with his jeans or something, they're really you.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
Know, they're done.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
Yeah, they're pretty much done. But there's still value to that.
So what happens is these things that we don't sell.
So everything that's donated, maybe fifty percent of the items
get sold. The other fifty percent is then salvage and
it doesn't get thrown away. It gets reused or repurposed,
and it might even go to our outlet store, it
(13:25):
might go to other thrift stores, or it could be
sold for rags like auto rags and mechanics rags and
stuff like that. But nothing gets thrown away. Even with
our housewares, you donate something electronics from your kitchen, and
if it didn't sell, we take the metal apart, We
sell the metal, we take the plastic apart, we sell
the plastic. The copper from the wires gets stripped and sold,
(13:48):
and so this creates employment opportunities for people, but also
funds our mission. And we're just really good for the environment.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
And when you say for me, nothing gets thrown away,
has such deep keep meaning in so many different ways,
whether it's inanimate object or an actual person. Right, nothing
gets thrown away. It's absolutely beautiful. Yah.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
And I'm glad you said that because we really that's
what we believe is, you know, nothing is disposable, and
especially not people. If people have had hard times or
made poor choices in their lives, we really believe in
second chances all the way around.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
I'm speaking with Richard Bohrer, he's president of Goodwill of
Southern New England. Thank you so much for sharing about
Goodwill industries. They can go to Goodwill dot org. But
what is the other of Southern.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
New England and Goodwill of Southern New England. Yeah, so
I would recommend that site because it's more local to
the Connecticut Rhode Island area, but you know, also Goodwill
dot org and then it will feed you to the
local Goodwills from wherever you're located. But shop Goodwill dot com.
The other site is Goodwill Finds. One is an auction
site and the other is by it now site, so
you'll see all types of items on there and I
(14:55):
think you'd be really surprised.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
Thank you for serving the community.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
Thank you so much for the opportunity to a large
story
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