Now don't that beat all!

[Deb]

I gotta tell y'all what happened this morning coz it's just boggled my mind. We had a nearly-new set of family room furniture that we didn't use anymore (a couch, chair and ottoman) and called the local ARC to arrange a pickup. ARC is a very cool charity organization that benefits the intellectually and developmentally handicapped. They run thrift stores and all their proceeds are based on donations to those stores. So early this morning, we set the furniture out in our driveway as they requested and put a note on it specifiying it was for an ARC pickup. We covered it in a tarp in case in rained and left instructions on the note asking them to leave the tarp beside the garage door.

Around 11, we checked and saw that the furniture was gone and the tarp was neatly folded and left by the garage door. We were happy that it all went off without a hitch till we found the voice mail on our phone saying, "This is ARC. It's 10am, our driver is in front of your house and there's nothing there to pickup".

Can you believe that someone stole a charity donation????? I mean, if it had just been left there with no specificiation, I can see where someone would just think it was out for trash pickup and walk off with it, but this was *clearly* marked for a charity. And we live in a really nice neighborhood too so it's not like anyone living around here would actually have a need to steal rather than buy. There's no thru traffic on our street so it had to be someone who lives around here.

<shaking head> I just can't believe that morals in our society have dropped to the point where someone in a neighborhood like this would steal from a charity. What a world.

Deb

[IAK]

:lol: Geez....what a world! ;)

[Esther]

unbelievable!

[Minis On The Edge]

Deb I am so sorry to hear that your furniture was stolen. It is still considered stolen, right? Can you file a police report? Just wondering because it is a shame. Especially since it was clearly mark :lol:

[JewelsRus]

Argh! That would make me pretty mad. You might expect that kind of thing in a poor neighborhood but it doesn't sound like that is where you live. I knew people that would joke when they wanted to get rid of things they would just put them out side and within one night they would be gone! The sad thing is it was not really joking because they were serious. I knew people who had a washer/dryer that were broken they did not want to have to take it to the dump themselves so they just left it on the porch overnight. Sure enough by morning it was gone!

[uppitycats]

Yeah, I'd probably declare it stolen, and make a lot of noise around the neighborhood - -a flyer, perhaps, asking "if anyone had seen someone take it??" Maybe the scofflaw will 'fess up, or it will mysteriously appear in your backyard again..

[Deb]

I just got off the phone with ARC and they said that this kind of thing happens fairly regularly. They take the attitude that if someone else needed it more, then they're welcome to it and told me not to worry about it. <sigh> How sad is that?

It really does make me want to walk the neighborhood and find whoever took it just to shame them. What need could anyone in an upper middle class neighborhood have that would outweigh the need of a foundation helping the disabled......or the people who shop in their stores who would have been helped by finding living room furniture at a price they could afford. I'm not irked that someone took something from my driveway that I had discarded, but it really torques my crank that a charity was cheated.

Deb

[Lony]

We get this type of thing all the time where we live. If you leave something outside with a big sign that says FREE it will sit there for weeks, BUT if you put a for sale sign on it.....Poof its gone.

Its a sad, sad world we live in. :lol:

[CJEP]

How horrible!! I can't believe people would steal from a charity. If they liked the furniture that much they should have just gone to the ARC store and bought it after it was delivered there.

[mommymakesstuff2]

Deb, I am sorry that that happened to you! what a terrible thing! I know ARC personally as I worked for them for 10 yrs until I quit to come and live here with my husband. I was a job coach and job developer for the community employment program. And believe me that they do need the donations lots of government funding was cut constantly. It is really too bad that, that happened but. You can feel better knowing that you set out with the best intentions and it was someone else's wrong doing not yours. Take solice in the fact that you are a person kind enough to attempt making a donation!

[heidiiiii]

It is a darn shame but I am not surprised..

Put up flyers with a pic of the set (if you have one) in your neighborhood. *Here ye! Here ye!..Does this livingroom set look familiar? If it does, then the person who now owns it stole it from a charity!*

[havanaholly]

I like Heidi's idea. One of the nice things about having a full-sized p/u truck is that we can deliver our donations (none of our charity thrift shops do pick-up) and not have that problem. DS#3 lives (?) on his SS (slightly better that the SSI disability check he used to get) (tight for the next five weeks whilst the food bank has shut down) and his duplex is in a nice lower-middle class neighborhood, mostly graduate student families who frequently move out as they finish up their degrees, so he gleans their trash piles and when he spots something especially useful or attractive (that he can sell) he always goes to to whoever is home to ask if they really intended to throw away whatever it is. Now a lot of the neighbors will have him come over to see if there's anything he can use before they throw it out!

One thing DH & I noted about a lot of the factory management & professionals we met over the years is that they would go into hock to their eyeballs for a big, fancy house in a "nice" neighborhood and have "nice furniture in one or two rooms but all the other doors closed. One night at a party I really had to "go" and the bathroom I was directed to had someone in it; I wasn't in a mood to wait and headed for the master bedroom to use their bathroom and they were sleeping on a mattress on the floor, so maybe it was one of your neighbors. And while thrift store shopping has become such a legitimate pursuit in the Tallahassee area (recycling is "big" here) that the Good Will stores are all charging (and getting) higher prices as they work to change their "image" from "thrift store" to "resale shop", it's no surprise to see folks wearing designer labels shopping there (I find most of my own wardrobe there, although now that their prices are going up I may have to look for sleazier thrift stores).

[Charlene]

I like Heidi's idea, too! Let us know if you do it!

And I'm afraid I've had the same experience as Holly -- just 'cause someone can swing the mortgage, doesn't mean they actually have any money left over to furnish the place. And one more thing -- I don't think honesty is a class issue -- there are just as many dishonest rich folks as there are dishonest poor folks (Enron and Martha Stewart come to mind :lol: )

[queenannediva]

This happens in my neighborhood too, and I live in a gated community so it is the neighbors that don't need to steal doing it. In fact our Security Patrol have caught them in the middle of the night. I know it's unbelievable.

Valerie

[havanaholly]

there are just as many dishonest rich folks as there are dishonest poor folks (Enron and Martha Stewart come to mind )

In public health we found that to be true of child & elder abuse, too.

[ilovecats]

Deb, that is just awful....you had great intentions, too bad you have a crappy neighbor who would steal from a charity! That would be hard to stomach, knowing one of your neighbors did this, and it was cleary marked for charity. Maybe one of your other neighbors saw who took the furniture.

[heidiiiii]

Our friend had surgery and went on worker`s comp. His check didnt arrive and it slipped out to Fred that he had no food in the house.

I took our last $30 and bought him groceries. I told him I didnt want it back but to pay it forward.

He has wealthy relatives. We were the only ones that helped.

I feel that is the way I want to live. Spare my last cash to help someone else OR put that money in the bank to grow interest. I am on the help side of the coin.

[Missymew]

Deb -

The same thing happened to me a few years back. I had arranged for a charity to pick up some furniture and put it out at our driveway entrance. Now we live in a cul de sac that can only be accessed by going through another cul de sac, so we're not located where there's a lot of on-street traffic.

I was sitting in the living room reading the paper and having my morning coffee, when I happened to look out the window and see a smallish hatchback car loading up some of the pieces. I didn't go out and challenge them. I felt that if they needed it, they were welcome to it. There were still several pieces left for the charity.

Lately, I've been just been listing any discards on our local Freecycle. It's a wonderful group that enables people like me to clear stuff out, and makes the items available to people who need stuff. In the last month, we've managed to give away 2 television sets, 2 dvd/vcr combo units, a cable box, a vacuum cleaner, cat beds, blankets, cat bowls and collars. One lady responded on a container of unused kitty litter (I'd bought 2 containers of a new brand and my 2 cats wouldn't use it). She said she worked for several animal rescue groups and gathered and sorted goods. So I went out and bought more kitty litter and food for her.

I guess there's a lot of people out there who are really struggling.

-Susanne

[aggiemae]

We also have had this happen to us. I think because you can call ARC and ask when the truck will be in ___ neighborhood so the scammers/thieves go out ahead of them and do the pick ups. I was home so I know it was a truck that came, they took stuff off my across the street neighbors driveway as well. It is pretty sleazy to steal from a charity, but criminals are what they are.

I would think they would concentrate on better neighborhoods where the donated items are of higher value, so hopefully it was not one of your neighbors. In our case we searched and found the dining room set on Craigslist along with about 20 other things listed by the same person for between $50-$200 each.

The worst part is that our local police would not do anythings since our intention was to give the stuff away. They acted like it was no big deal. We did add a post to Gregslist anouncing that the items being sold by____ where stolen ARC donations, it stayed up for a couple of hours then someone flagged it.

[Shy Spirit]

It's a sad world we live in. :lol:

[Deb]

We also have had this happen to us. I think because you can call ARC and ask when the truck will be in ___ neighborhood so the scammers/thieves go out ahead of them and do the pick ups.

I didn't realize that people could get that information, so it's possible that's what happened. The mixed message I can't quite understand is why they folded the tarp so neatly and left it exactly where my note had asked ARC to leave it. That makes it seem like whoever took it probably didn't see it as stealing. Believe me, if I ever find out it was a neighbor, I'll be happy to educate them on exactly why taking a charity donation is stealing. I lived below poverty level for the first 30 years of my life and totally understand what it takes to make ends meet when there's more month than paycheck, but I don't have a lot of sympathy for anyone who lives above their means and would steal from a charity to compensate for it.

We donate a lot to ARC but we usually drop it off at the store closest to us. This was the first time we had something too big to fit in our SUV. Bruce and I were just talking about it and decided that next time, we'll rent a u-haul and deliver it ourselves to make sure the right people get it.

Deb

[alycemina]

Hopefully, whoever took the furniture was needy.

[Cuppa-Tea]

Just to play devil's advocate here... I know several people who trash pick... just take things that people are throwing away and have put out to the curb. A few years ago, we put an aquarium out to the curb and it disappeared during the night (It was a 30-gallon set). I have no idea how anyone found it because we live on the end of a dead-end street in a very quiet neighborhood.

Anyway, I personally have never heard of ARC, and if the note had said "For ARC Pickup" I would have thought it meant "For August Refuse Collection pickup" or something like that and thought it was being thrown away. Hence the neatly folded tarp from a well-meaning trash picker.

So it's a possibility, although a slight one, that the picker-upper made a mistake. But still a shame!

[mommymakesstuff2]

Our friend had surgery and went on worker`s comp. His check didnt arrive and it slipped out to Fred that he had no food in the house.

I took our last $30 and bought him groceries. I told him I didnt want it back but to pay it forward.

He has wealthy relatives. We were the only ones that helped.

I feel that is the way I want to live. Spare my last cash to help someone else OR put that money in the bank to grow interest. I am on the help side of the coin.

We are the same way heidi. Even though we are pretty much the most broke family in our tree we are always the first to offer what we have to our friends and neighbors.

When we first moved into our house the next door neighbor was angry at us because we evicted the previous tenants. What he didn't know was that I was pregnant with my fourth and prior to inheriting the house we were living in a tiny apartment. I had given the tenants almost a year to find a place.

Anyway, I always send food to my neighbors no matter where we live. I hate to throw stuff away!

So, I guess I made an impression on the old couple because I was always checking in even though the husband was nasty to me and never returned my greetings. When the wife found she was dieing. She told her husband that he needed to apologize and be nice to the kids next door. The day after she died he came over and apologized and ever since we have been great neighbors. he and his daughter keep an eye out for our house (so cal) while we are not there.

It doesn't hurt to be kind when you can be.

[mommymakesstuff2]

Just to play devil's advocate here... I know several people who trash pick... just take things that people are throwing away and have put out to the curb. A few years ago, we put an aquarium out to the curb and it disappeared during the night (It was a 30-gallon set). I have no idea how anyone found it because we live on the end of a dead-end street in a very quiet neighborhood.

Anyway, I personally have never heard of ARC, and if the note had said "For ARC Pickup" I would have thought it meant "For August Refuse Collection pickup" or something like that and thought it was being thrown away. Hence the neatly folded tarp from a well-meaning trash picker.

So it's a possibility, although a slight one, that the picker-upper made a mistake. But still a shame!

ARC is the Association for Retarded Citizens but they go by ARC now because retarded, has become a derogatory term as opposed to medical.