ROBYN Hosking from Bendigo's RSPCA op shop wants the community to consider cleaning out their home or wardrobe and making a donation this winter.
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The call came as the store, and others in the region, faced a significant slump in the number of goods coming in.
Ms Hosking started volunteering at the store last year and took on the team leader role in mid-January. While she has enjoyed the job, the shortages have been noticeable.
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"June has been, I think, the worst month on record for a long time," Ms Hosking said.
"I've only been [here] less than a year and a half, but I think even the long term volunteers have never seen such a dearth of donations.
"At first, it seemed to coincide with the onset of the really cold winter weather, and we had quite a bit of rain which is unusual for Bendigo, and I thought maybe that's keeping people at home.
"And this is my own personal opinion, but I think people are keeping more things for themselves to sell on Gumtree or [Facebook] Marketplace, which quite entitled to do but I think it's affected the quantity of donations that we get."
An RSPCA spokesperson backed up Ms Hosking's theory, and said they suspected the lack of new arrivals was affected by multiple factors, but was partly due to winter.
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"People generally do less and donations decrease [in winter]," the spokesperson said.
"We also suspect the cost of living could be having an impact on donation numbers as people try to make extra money where they can by selling surplus items themselves through eBay and Facebook Marketplace.
"RSPCA's op shops rely on donations and community support, without which the organisation can't continue our critical work supporting animals in need."
With the cost of living rising, donating and shopping at the RSPCA op shop and other charity shops in the region is a fantastic way to support a good cause while grabbing a bargain.
78 per cent of the money raised by Ms Hosking's team goes to the RSPCA in Burwood and then is distributed to animal shelters around the state - and every donation and purchase can help.
Ms Hosking said the store's wish list included good quality clothing that people would wear themselves, books, jewelry, CDs, DVDs, ornaments - which people in Bendigo reportedly love.
"Sometimes we get really good pottery so I tend to Google it and find out its provenance or where it came from," Ms Hosking said.
"And then you have to set a decent price to represent its value, not just sell it for $2 because we want to get good value for what the person has given us and send more money off to the shelters.
"Toys to a certain extent, we don't have a lot of floor space, but they're usually quite popular especially during the school holidays."
Unfortunately the store does receive some unusable donations including unwearable attire which has to be used for rags - so people should ensure clothing is in good condition.
To donate, people can visit the store from Monday to Friday between 10.30am and 4pm, or on Saturday between 10am and 2pm.
"We do prefer people to drop things off during the hours that we're open," Ms Hosking said.
"Some mornings, earlier in the year, we had a lot of donations [left out the front].
"You turn up to work in the morning and they've just scattered everywhere and sometimes if it had been raining, they'd be wet, so in-store is best."
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