SOLEDAD — South County Animal Rescue (SCAR) collected donations of household items for Goodwill from Jan. 24 to 26 as a fundraiser for its animal services.
This year the organization collected an entire truck’s worth of donations by Saturday afternoon, with a second trailer partially filled throughout the rest of the weekend.
This is SCAR’s third year partnering with Goodwill for a collection fundraiser.
“Almost any household items can be accepted,” said SCAR Board Member Monica Martinez. She said that could even include textbooks, computers, televisions and clothing.
During the three days of the drive, there were representatives from SCAR present to host the event, sort donations and answer questions.
When asked about community response to the donation drives, Martinez said, “They usually ask what the funds are used to and how they can go about making other donations. Sometimes they’ll bring donated items for the drive, and sometimes for pets as well.”
She added, “Throughout the year we are always collecting donated items for homeless pets in our care,” noting that could be anything from bags of dog food to bags of towels.
Each collection trailer is marked with a fill percentage inside, and once it reaches 100 percent, Goodwill can collect it and bring in a new trailer.
“For every trailer that we fill, Goodwill pays us $500,” Martinez explained. “It’s really a win-win.”
There was no set fundraising goal, but Martinez said last year SCAR was able to fill one-and-a-half trailers. They had an unofficial goal of being able to fill two trailers.
“If we fill one, it’s a huge benefit to the animals there,” Martinez said.
The Soledad High School Track Club was present to help unload donations, which is their third year helping SCAR with the Goodwill collection drives. As many members of the group helped as possible, with different groups assisting at different times on Saturday and Sunday.
“These kids have always loved to help out, especially with this,” said Coach Eliazar Rubio. “They’re all a bunch of good kids.”
In addition to helping with the Goodwill collection, Rubio said the athletes help out by selling tickets for fundraising events and going door-to-door to hand out fliers. They also assist their city by performing an annual garbage pickup.
“We do this just to help out the community,” Rubio said.
“Our coach has always tried to get us to do more and more,” said Bryan Cardenas, a junior at Soledad High School, adding that he enjoys helping out with the SCAR drive. “It amazes me how much he gets us into the community. We help out wherever we can.”
SCAR was founded in 2016 with the goal of reducing the homeless domestic animal population in South Monterey County. The organization works toward providing rescue and adoption services, as well as access to low-cost spay and neuter programs. For more information, visit www.scar.pet.
