De Pere Christian Outreach — Local services in De Pere

I’ve been holding off on writing this review, but keeping it bottled up is frustrating for me. My mom is in an Alzheimer’s facility and in April we moved my 95 year old dad in senior living because he couldn’t take care of the house anymore. We had an estate sale company come in and prepare for a huge 2 day sale. The house was over 3,000 square feet filled with some beautiful things. Things you accumulate over 50 years in a house. After the two day sale we still had a large amount of things left so I started selling some things on Facebook. We knew we would be bringing the rest to De Pere Christian outreach because we wanted to support a local thrift store. I’ve only been to the store a handful of times and have donated some clothes and kitchen wares twice. I’ve seen some of my clothes hanging in the store. We only had so much time to sell things on Facebook because the house was going on the market the following week. We had to make the decision to have a company come in and take much of it to the dump. It broke my heart to do that. I kept a separate truckload of Christmas decorations, house decorations, pictures, beautiful cookbooks, frames, furniture, clothes, etc that I really felt some people in need would like. We showed up with everything in bags because we ran out of boxes. I noticed a sign on the door that said “no truckloads” so I went in and asked and a nice gentleman said “sure go ahead bring it in”. While we were starting to unload, another man came out and said “we can’t take all this stuff. You’re here all the time and we throw half of it away”. Excuse me? I just stared at him. I didn’t defend myself because why should I? I know I’m Not there all the time and that they don’t throw all my stuff away because I haven’t brought in that much for you to throw away. Besides some is hanging in the store. He never even asked my husband what was in the bags. Then a woman, who I assume is the manager, comes out and because she saw a price tag on an item she said “oh you’re an estate company we’re not taking this stuff”. I was so angry and we just left and brought it all to Goodwill who happily took everything. Never again will I step foot in such an entitled place. We weren’t bringing junk, we were bringing items from a very large house that we didn’t have time to sell. Things that would have been great for families just starting out, single people, or people in need. It was a very emotional and sad time for me selling everything from my childhood home and they added to my stress. Who are they to make a decision like this without even looking at anything? Disgusting! I’m not sure who they thought I was, but it definitely was a case of mistaken identity and was not appropriate or...

I've had all good experiences with donating at COC, until today. I felt the need to write this because I have two friends that have also had bad experiences when donating. I realize you gentlemen are volunteering your time, but that gives you no right to be nasty to people. Today I brought in a huge amount of new with tags, or next to new clothing. After telling them I'd like to keep my Ikea bags, they brought me two garbage bags for the clothing. So what was nicely folded clothes, were now a mess. Okay, fine. After running out of space in the bags, I started placing perfectly folded jeans, new with tags, neatly stacking them next to the bags. One man came in and stated 'put them in this bin instead of throwing them on the table'. I looked at him to see if he was serious.. throwing them on the table? One of the other men looked embarrassed that he said this to me. I left there knowing I will never donate to this organization again....

By far the best thrift store in the Green Bay area. When compared to Goodwill and St. Vincent De Paul, this place is tiny. Their toy selection, electronics and home furnishings are pretty limited, their store hours are different, usually closing around 3pm. But, where this place really shines above and really anywhere around here is their clothes, especially children's, and their staff. The prices remind me more of a yard / garage sale instead of a business. When you have 3 boys at different ages, go in here with $20, and leave with at minimum 1 1/2 bags filled, and change left over, that's great!

Update - They now accept credit and debit cards. You have to pay the processing fee for credit, but it's...