Charities Reap the Benefits from Sale Donations

For many families in the Greater Boston area, the annual Parent Talk Used Clothing, Toy and Equipment Sale is a prudent way to meet the ever changing needs of young children. It is a way for residents in and around Needham to participate in a great exchange of goods, as they can volunteer to work the sale, donate and consign items they no longer need, while picking up what they do. The sale builds community, but also has a much farther reach, providing ample donations to charities in the Boston area and as far away as the Dominican Republic.

Volunteers from Parent Talk begin the multistep process of organizing the sale by setting up a POD weeks in advance where people can begin dropping off things they wish to donate. By Saturday morning, October 18th, thousands of items will have undergone a rigorous inspection and pricing system before they are finally hung up and neatly categorized for the lines of shoppers to peruse beginning at 8:30am. At noon, the extreme bargains can be had during the one hour bag sale at which time volunteers distribute grocery bags to be filled for a total of ten dollars. Surprisingly, at 1:00, there is still plenty of product remaining and this is when representatives from participating charities are invited to walk through the two and half floors, choosing items that will fulfill needs of the communities they serve. 

The charities who receive goods from the Parent Talk sale include Arm 2 Arm, Baby Bundles, Bagong Kulturang Pinoy, Brockton Neighborhood Health Center, Circle of Hope, and Room to Grow. The feedback from their representatives is a testament to the far reaching impact of this one volunteer organized event:

We are so grateful that Circle of Hope is one of the charities that is able to select unsold items at the end of your sales.  Our volunteers bring back beautiful, high quality items that we are proud to deliver to our clients.  Parent Talk makes a real difference in the lives of many homeless people!

Terri Larrabee from Arm2Arm had this to say after being invited to return to the sale again this year:

We get such great clothes from your sale for the Haitian people in the bateys in the Dominican Republic.  We just got back from our trip a week ago and brought suitcases filled with clothes, shoes and medicine.  Thank you so much for including us.

Attached are a couple pictures of the children on our recent trip.  Milton, the boy with cerebral palsy whom one of your members donated a running stroller, is doing well and his mother is still using his stroller to get around the dirt paths.  It has improved their lives greatly and when we saw him last week, his mother was anxious to show us how well he was doing.