“Donation pickups for car-free DC residents”

Photo by PoPville flickr user Beau Finley

“Dear PoPville,

I recently moved and am in the process of downsizing and making more room in my new place. To that end, I have about 8 boxes of clothing, shoes and assorted household goods ready to be donated, but I don’t own a car so I can’t just throw everything in and swing by Goodwill, Martha’s Table, etc..

I scheduled a donation pickup through GreenDrop, but ran into the following issue: since I live in a condo and have no room on the sidewalk outside my building’s gate to leave the boxes, I asked that they use the call box, or call me directly to let me know when they were there so I could bring everything down. They said they don’t do that, even though I explained how I couldn’t put things outside my building (I also explained that I didn’t want people rifling through things while the boxes were awaiting pickup which would probably happen if I were to put them out on the sidewalk).

Was wondering if anyone has other recommendations for getting donations picked up that are beyond “leave your boxes on your porch/in your garage/etc” and have a bit more flexibility. I can’t imagine I’m the only person to ever have this issue (and I bet people are ramping up on donations since the latest Marie Kondo craze!!) and I hate the idea of any of this going to waste, so wanted to see if anyone had any suggestions or tips.