From Strip Show to Skid Row
I've set a zero-tolerance policy for my family. Use it or lose it and no amnesty -- not for Barbie, not for GameBoy and definitely not for last season's Steve Madden slides.
So on a recent run to my local Goodwill donation center, I readily added my own offerings to a small mound of green plastic garbage bags, old cartons and ragged furniture.
I barely registered the middle-aged man inventorying the donations. But while driving home, I wondered who would take a job handling other people's leavings. Do household items come clean or crusty? Are clothes washed and folded? What if something nasty slithers out of a bag?
Goodwill intrigued me. In a city where competition for castoffs is hot, who donates to a charity that lacks a distinct constituency? I can guess who gives to Hadassah, Seoul Thrift or Out of the Closet. But where is Goodwill's constituency? Among the good, the willing, or both?
There's a high fusty factor to Goodwill's public identity. Goodwill isn't your charity. It's your Aunt Beulah's. Many stores are shabby, and the customers aren't hunting for vintage chic. The whole scene seems part of an older era, a challenge met head-on by the venerable charity's new tag line -- "It's not what you think" -- and a spruced-up visual identity that owes more to TJ Maxx than the Salvation Army.
The current fervor for faith-based activities notwithstanding, Goodwill's branding strategy doesn't mention its Christian roots. But it's certainly there: In the 1910s, several Methodists in Los Angeles began a social and religious outreach to the Mexican community around the Olvera Street plaza. Their efforts to raise money for a medical clinic led to the first Goodwill store in Southern California, following the model developed by a minister in Boston's similarly depressed South End.
The local church folks bought 200 old coffee sacks and paid unemployed immigrant women to mend them. The "opportunity bags" were distributed to businessmen, students, church members and USC professors, who filled them with unwanted clothing and household items. Mexican workers repaired and mended the donations, which were then sold to the community at a low price. The recycling scheme succeeded and, in 1919, Goodwill Industries incorporated as a secular nonprofit.
Today, the downtown store on South Broadway is managed by Gina Torres, a Yucatan native who moved here more than 30 years ago. A flamboyant redhead, Gina always has a good word for customers and "clients" -- workers with disabilities or vocational disadvantages.
