Valley charities seeing end-of-year spike in donations

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- The end-of-the-year rush is on for charities as many are hoping to stockpile donated items before the end of 2011.

Non-profit agencies like Goodwill are seeing a spike around the holidays where the need for donations goes up.

Goodwill of the San Joaquin Valley, which covers Stockton down to Visalia, received hundreds of thousands donations last year.

With some of the highest unemployment numbers in the state, it can turn these donations into thousands of job opportunities.

It's been a good year for Goodwill: donations are up, and the week around Christmas has been the busiest for the charity.

Some say the spike is because people are feeling more philanthropic during the holidays while others are simply trying to meet the tax write-off deadline.

Stores in Southern California have done especially well. During the year many put out 35-hundred pieces of newly donated items a day.

This holiday season that number has doubled.

More than 90 percent of everything sold at Goodwill stores goes directly back into the community by way of programs that help the unemployed find work.

That's an incentive charity officials hope will keep their donation numbers up well into next year.

Here in the Central Valley there are eight stores with dozens additional drop-off sites.

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charity, central valley, local, tommy tran

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