USA Today:
When disaster strikes, Americans clean out their closets.They fill bag after bag with secondhand clothes and send them off by the truckload.
Now overloaded relief agencies are saying: Enough.
So many truckloads of clothes have poured into Baton Rouge since Hurricane Katrina that volunteers from the St. Vincent de Paul Society gave away 100,000 pieces of clothing in 10 days, says Mike Acaldo, director of the Baton Rouge chapter. The group's 20,000-square-foot warehouse is still "packed," he says.
In Gulfport, Miss., the county emergency management director has begged kind-hearted donors to stop. Without enough volunteers to distribute them, clothes ended up piled by the roadside and strewn across parking lots.
...
Relief agencies dread the influx of clothes that inevitably follows a disaster. It takes time and volunteers to sort the items and dispose of things that are unwearable. The Red Cross doesn't accept donated clothes; it wants cash so those in need can buy new.
"It's empowerment, it's their own recovery, and it's a boost to the local economy," spokeswoman Sarah O'Brien says.
In New Iberia, La., agencies are looking for a second warehouse to hold unneeded clothes. "The people who are giving used clothes are wanting to help," says Joe Watts of Adventist Community Services. "We appreciate it, but ... it can be the second disaster."
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