D Movement: Calculate Your Spring Cleaning Impact

By Jennifer Kalifa, Donations Manager

Spring is in the air! Yes it is. Does anyone feel like you need to do some Spring cleaning? Cleaning out closets and drawers is a great way to start a new season. Really, come on get these items into Goodwill, where you can change lives. Goodwill is in need of gently-used items that you no longer need. We turn your items into jobs. Jobs for those who need help finding one and gaining that feeling of independence.

I know what it’s like to help someone change their life. I see it every day with the members of my team. For instance, Byron Sheffield. I know you’ve seen him in Goodwill’s television commercials. He is a real life success story and I’m pleased to say that I had a hand in helping Byron become the man he is today. When I worked in Goodwill’s retail department he was an attendant at one of our stores. He impressed me with how hard he worked to please the donors. Today he is a donations supervisor.

Since coming to the donations department I have watched him grow in so many areas. He now has some computer knowledge and creates the schedule for all of the employees who work for him. In a nutshell, he has just really shown me that the sky is the limit with him. This is what your donations do for people. How awesome is that? It gives me chill bumps just thinking about how cool it is to be a part of a company that really does change lives.

Have you calculated your impact?

The Making of the Goodwill TV Commercials

By Jimmy Chaffin, Partner, DVL Public Relations and Advertising

Several years ago DVL had the pleasure of creating a new advertising campaign designed to capture and explain the mission of Goodwill and how what you give provides jobs and changes lives.

Our approach was simple:  let the Goodwill employees’ whose lives have been changed tell you their own stories and explain that when you donate your gently-used items, you give far more than a donation. When you give to Goodwill, you give confidence, dignity, purpose, hope and happiness.

The popularity of the first campaign has now become a series featuring dozens of Goodwill employees.   Through the years we’ve had the honor of flying an American flag with Steven, delivering cookies with Pam, shooting pool with Teresa, sharing dinner with Rai, going fishing with Miss Currie, and reliving Byron’s wedding day, just to name a few.

This year we met Tonya and spent the day enjoying her son’s baseball game.  We also met Robert and his family who, despite all being blind, enjoy going bowling together.  But Robert isn’t just a bowler, he’s also a singer who composed and performed his own original song, “It’s a Good Day.”

Each year we meet brings a host of inspiring new people who share their amazing stories.  People, who despite being disabled, handicapped, disadvantaged, homeless or a facing host of other barriers, have reached out to Goodwill and found help.

They will tell you how blessed they are, how much they enjoy going to work every day, how much they love the people they work with and that Goodwill really has changed their lives.

Our agency is fortunate to share in these moments and have a relationship with a client that provides an opportunity to participate in something that truly makes a difference.  Because something that started out as a way to show how a donation changes others’ lives has turned into something that has also changed ours.

Thank you Goodwill for changing lives.