Written by: Sierra Porter | Staff Writer

The holidays can induce many feelings of happiness through eating good food, giving gifts and seeing your family. Although, one thing the holidays are also notorious for, that is less joyous, is the fact that waste increases dramatically over the holiday seasons. 

Waste and trash increases by at least 25% after the holiday season when individuals throw away about 81.5 pounds of clothes at the end of the year. Instead of chucking everything in the trash bin, Oregon has many donation sites that offer a better, more sustainable option than throwing away unwanted holiday gifts.

Clothes/Furniture/Decor

Goodwill — and other local thrift stores are always great options to give unused clothes and furniture — being that they are in decent condition of course. Donating to these types of stores allows them to continue to provide job opportunities and contribute back to the community. 

Habitat For Humanity Restore — is another community knit organization that can pick up one’s donations, or one can drop them off anytime from 10 a.m. to 5:45 p.m. — no appointment needed. They accept donations consisting of furniture, cabinets, exercise equipment, home goods and tools for a variety of jobs. 

Food

Oregon Food Bank — offers tremendously different options on how to donate food and money, volunteer and even set up one’s own food bank for communities near you. The goal of the Oregon Food Bank is to eliminate hunger one step at a time and to bring the community closer together to increase awareness of these organizations. Visit the Oregon Food Bank website to see the variety of ways you can help, or if you know someone who is in need of resources, the site provides locations of places one can pick up free groceries and resources. 

Books/music

The Book Corner — located in Beaverton, accepts donations of items including books, CD’s, vinyls, comics and more. The Book Corner accepts donations Tuesday to Friday from 10 a.m.–4 p.m.. All donations must be free from smoke stains, water stains and foul odors and need to be decent in quality. 

Ethos Music Center — accepts musical instruments and equipment to donate to local children passionate about music. Ethos takes any instrument from drums, violins and woodwinds to equipment like reeds, guitar racks, strings and even computers or tablets. Simply fill out a donation form and a staff member will reach out. 

Don’t waste this year, donate. 

Contact the author at howlstaffwriter@wou.edu