The Observation Deck

At the April 6th, 2015 city council meeting, I recall that there was some concern expressed about the clothing donation boxes in private parking lots throughout the city. Cindy Marx read a letter regarding the matter and said that many of these boxes are placed without the property owner's permission and that they are often not very well-maintained.

While picking up a friend at Giant Eagle today, I had to get out of the car and take a picture of the clothing donation boxes at the northeast corner of the parking lot. Besides graffiti all over the boxes, they were also overflowing and had miscellaneous items sitting outside of them. See the picture below.

We have a wonderful fireworks program that many people come from outside of Lakewood to see. If they drive down Bunts Road or stop at Giant Eagle for snacks, this is what they will see. Welcome to our clean city.

Looks like there is information regarding the company that maintains these boxes right on the front of the boxes. Have you tried to contact them Lori? Having moved here from a much dirtier city, I tend to not even notice such eyesores. Thanks for being more sensitive to such things than I. These companies need to be more vigilant in keeping up these sites if we are to maintain a decent standard of cleanliness here in Lakewood.

call me a glass half full kinda gal because what I see is the generosity of Lakewood citizens. rather than throw away clothes and baby goods into a landfill, people gave their things to others (aka "those people") who may not have it so good.

I worry more about overstuffed landfills and the hardship of others than what a few folks passing through might think.

but that's just me.

kate e parker wrote:call me a glass half full kinda gal because what I see is the generosity of Lakewood citizens. rather than throw away clothes and baby goods into a landfill, people gave their things to others (aka "those people") who may not have it so good.

I worry more about overstuffed landfills and the hardship of others than what a few folks passing through might think.

but that's just me.

Kate

I think you have it right, put them out there, never empty them or maintain them, just use them as a gravity source for
unwanted items. Who doesn't love clothes, and stuff animals that have been in a couple good rains.

Kate you crack me up.

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it's a holiday weekend. that stuff looks pretty bagged up and I am still looking for the stuffed animal photobomb.

i did not suggest that the boxes shouldn't be maintained. it seems that i needed to point that out to you, jim.

speaking of beauty, i had the pleasure of riding through Madison park yesterday. you would in no way have suspected we had just come off of a holiday weekend. it looked, well, beautiful.

Hi Cameron,

Thanks for the tip about the phone number on the box. I did not even notice it.

kate e parker wrote:it seems that i needed to point that out to you, jim.

speaking of beauty, i had the pleasure of riding through Madison park yesterday. you would in no way have suspected we had just come off of a holiday weekend. it looked, well, beautiful.

Kate

Duhhhhhhh, Irish you know.

Lakewood City Crews are doing a great job, now that the city wants to prove they can take care of green space.

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This is an update on the clothing collection boxes outside Giant Eagle. Last week, I stopped into Giant Eagle and spoke to the manager on-duty. He told me that Giant Eagle doesn't have anything to do with them. I asked him whether or not Giant Eagle had to give their permission to these companies to put their boxes on the lot. He said yes. We had quite a nice talk about the city and how things have changed over the past five years (in his opinion, it was not good). He told me he could check into the situation. Today, I stopped to pick up a few items and noticed that the black box was gone. However, the white box is so full that donors have to leave their bags (and loose clothing) outside on the parking lot.

My question is: where is the mayor on this? What about the councilpersons? I find it hard to believe that they never go by these boxes and notice that they are an eyesore, especially since council discussed this back in April.

Below is what I observed this afternoon: