Fall Cleaning With a Purpose: 5 Ways Your Unwanted Items Can Give Back by Donating to Central Florida Thrift Stores
As the seasons change and we settle into fall, many of us start thinking about cleaning, organizing, and preparing our homes for the months ahead. But what if your fall cleaning could do more than create a little extra space?
Every spring, Light Orlando hosts our Spring Community Clothing Closet Clean Out, bringing our nonprofit partners together to collect and distribute clothing and essential items to individuals and families throughout Central Florida. While that annual community-wide effort is an important part of our work, the need for clothing, household goods, furniture, food, and other essentials doesn't disappear when spring is over.
Fall is another opportunity give back in Central Florida: Clean out your closet, declutter your home, and give your gently used items a second purpose.
Across Central Florida, nonprofit thrift stores and resale programs turn community donations into funding, resources, job opportunities, housing support, food assistance, and other services for neighbors experiencing hardship.
So as you're sorting through closets, garages, playrooms, and storage spaces this fall, don't automatically toss the things you no longer need. If they're still in good, usable condition, consider donating them to a local nonprofit where your items can help support someone in need.
Here are five Light Orlando nonprofit partners with Central Florida thrift stores and donation programs you can support this fall:
Central Florida Hope Center | Hope Thrift Store | Learn more HERE.
Winter Garden | Orange County
At the Central Florida Hope Center, Hope Thrift Store offers quality used items at affordable prices while turning community generosity into resources for local families.
What Can You Donate?
Hope Thrift Store accepts gently used:
Clothing and accessories
Furniture
Books and electronics
Housewares and kitchenware
New toys and games
Have furniture or appliances to donate? The Central Florida Hope Center offers free pickup for gently used furniture and appliances.
Furniture pickup: Monday–Wednesday, 9 a.m.–5 p.m. (Text: 352-933-3905)
Where Can You Donate?
Hope Thrift Store: 1010 South Dillard St. Winter Garden, FL 34787
Store hours: Monday–Saturday, 10 a.m.–6 p.m. (Closed Sundays)
Phone: 407-347-3842
Your Donations Support More Than a Thrift Store
Every purchase at Hope Thrift Store helps support programs designed to address both immediate needs and long-term stability.
Food Pantry: The Hope Center operates a choice pantry where individuals and families select the foods that best meet their needs. The pantry provides fresh produce, dairy, meat, bread, shelf-stable foods, and nutrition and budgeting education.
Job Placement: Employment services help adults build skills and confidence through resume assistance, interview preparation, skills training, mentoring, and direct job connections.
Immigration Services: The Hope Center provides legal representation for family-based petitions, residency, naturalization, humanitarian cases, waivers, fiancé visas, and other immigration needs.
Life Solutions: Case managers help individuals and families navigate challenges such as homelessness, near homelessness, family separation, addiction, and a lack of life skills through individual and family support, crisis intervention, group sessions, and referrals.
The Impact
In 2025, the Central Florida Hope Center reported:
191,655 meals served
12,777 people served
8,628 volunteer hours
62 immigration clients
$185,881 in food value distributed
12 jobs placed
Your fall donations can help keep these resources moving throughout Central Florida.
The Sharing Center | The Village Shoppes | Lean More HERE.
Longwood | Seminole County
At The Sharing Center, shopping and donating are both ways to support families experiencing poverty, hunger, and housing instability. The Village Shoppes include a Boutique, Furniture Store, and traditional Thrift Store, offering everything from clothing and home goods to furniture and unique finds.
What Can You Donate?
The Sharing Center accepts pre-owned items from homes, churches, and businesses.
Your donations may be:
Sold in one of the stores to generate revenue for the mission
Shared directly with a family in need
Salvaged through partner organizations such as bookstores, metal recycling centers, and electronics refurbishes
Each donation is carefully processed to determine how it can make the greatest impact.
How Do You Donate?
Bring your donations to The Sharing Center Donation Center.
Donation hours: Monday–Saturday, 10 a.m.–4 p.m.
Store hours: Monday–Saturday, 9:30 a.m.–5 p.m.
The Sharing Center also regularly features sales and specials, making it easy to shop with a purpose!
Your Donations Support Families in Crisis
A significant portion of proceeds from The Village Shoppes helps provide essential resources to local families.
Family Support: Financial assistance, tax preparation, rental assistance, and clothing and shoe vouchers help families navigate times of crisis.
The Pantry: One of Seminole County's largest free food assistance resources helps alleviate hunger and provide nourishment to families.
The Oasis: This respite center for individuals experiencing homelessness provides showers, laundry services, housing guidance, internet and mail services, and haircuts.
Project Rise: Workforce development services help under- and unemployed individuals build skills that can lead toward employment, financial mobility, and self-sufficiency.
In 2025, The Sharing Center reported that 12,305 individuals received more than 97,200 critical services, helping local families restore stability, strengthen employability skills, and reduce food insecurity. Your donated furniture, clothing, household items, and other treasures can become part of that impact!
Matthew's Hope | Matthew's Hope Chest Workshop | Learn More HERE.
Winter Garden | Orange County
Have an old solid-wood piece of furniture that you're ready to part with? Before you put it on the curb, consider whether it could have a second life at Matthew's Hope Chest Workshop.
Matthew's Hope Chest is a work opportunity for guests of Matthew's Hope Ministries who are ready to develop their skills beyond the ministry's basic-needs services. Guests work in a structured environment where they learn and demonstrate skills such as woodworking, reliability, punctuality, productivity, teamwork, and maintaining a work schedule.
The goal isn't simply to refinish furniture. It's to help people rebuild skills, confidence, and pathways toward independence.
What Can You Donate?
Matthew's Hope Chest accepts limited donations of real, solid-wood furniture pieces.
Important: No pressboard furniture!
Because the workshop evaluates donations based on the current skills and capacity of the team, do not bring furniture to the shop without making contact first.
How to Donate Furniture
Take photos of your gently used, solid-wood furniture and email them to:
hopechestshop@matthewshopeministries.org . The shop team will review your photos and respond within approximately 48 hours to let you know whether the piece is something the current team can work with. If approved, they will arrange a time for the donation.
Where Can You Shop?
Matthew's Hope Chest Store1027 S. Dillard Street Winter Garden, FL
Hours: Monday–Saturday, 10 a.m.–4 p.m.
The shop features custom wood furniture, farm tables, barn doors, and other creations.
Your Furniture Can Help Build a Future
The Hope Chest is connected to Matthew's Hope's broader work supporting individuals experiencing homelessness and hardship.
The Winter Garden campus provides access to services including:
Showers and hygiene services
Hot meals
A grocery-style food distribution program
Healthcare and mental health services
Clothing and essential items
Barber and beauty services
Work opportunities through the Hope Chest
The workshop also plays a role in the ministry's Moving Forward Program, helping guests develop the work habits and skills needed to pursue employment and, when eligible, transitional housing.
So that old solid-wood table, dresser, or other furniture piece may be more than something you no longer need. It could become an opportunity for someone else to learn, work, and move forward!
One Heart for Women and Children | One Heart Thrift Store | Learn More HERE.
Orlando | Orange County
At One Heart for Women and Children, donated goods help provide resources to women, children, and families experiencing hunger and hardship throughout Central Florida.
The One Heart Thrift Store offers furniture, household items, clothing, and other treasures, with proceeds helping support the organization's mission.
What Can You Donate?
The Heart of Giving Program accepts items including:
Clothing
Furniture
Baby supplies
Diapers and formula
Baby clothing
Non-perishable food
Household essentials
Items for back-to-school drives
Items for holiday support programs
All donated items should be in good, usable condition.
Furniture is accepted, including couches, chairs, tables, and other household pieces, but large furniture donations require advance approval.
How Do You Donate?
Donation Drop-Off: 2040 N. Rio Grande Ave. Orlando, FL 32804
Donation hours: Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday, 2–4 p.m.
One Heart does not directly offer standard pickup services, so if you're interested in having a donation picked up, contact: info@helponeheart.org
DON'T FORGET! For furniture and other large items, One Heart requests photos of the items before arranging a donation or pickup.
Your Donations Help Feed Local Families
The One Heart Thrift Store and Heart of Giving Program help support the organization's Community Food Pantry, baby programs, mobile food distributions, back-to-school initiatives, and holiday support programs.
The Community Food Pantry provides food and essential supplies to children, women, men, seniors, and families experiencing food insecurity.
One Heart also operates a monthly Mobile Food Distribution program, bringing nutritious food directly into communities across Orange County where transportation or access may be a barrier.
The scale of that need is significant. One Heart reports that since the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of people it serves each month increased from an average of approximately 3,000 to more than 20,000.
As of January 2025, the organization celebrated providing 11.5 million meals. When you donate something you no longer need, you can help turn it into resources for someone who does.
New Beginnings Thrift Store
Clermont | Lake County | Learn More HERE.
At New Beginnings, the thrift store is more than a place to shop for affordable goods. It's a key part of the organization's mission to help individuals and families move toward stability and independence.
According to New Beginnings, more than 87% of thrift store revenue helps fund its life-changing programs, including housing solutions, job placement and skills development, and faith-based services.
The organization also provides free shopping opportunities for individuals experiencing crisis, including domestic violence survivors and people receiving benevolence assistance.
What Should You Donate?
New Beginnings asks the community to “donate with purpose.”
Gently used, high-quality items are welcome, with the organization asking donors to focus on items that are still useful and able to uplift someone else.
How Do You Donate?
New Beginnings Thrift Store: 415 Citrus Tower Blvd. Clermont, FL 34711
Store hours: Monday–Saturday, 9 a.m.–6 p.m. Closed Sunday
Donation hours: Monday–Friday, 9 a.m.–5 p.m.| Saturday, 9 a.m.–4 p.m.| Closed Sunday
Donations & pickups: 352-507-9063 Email: logistics@nbcfl.org
Your Donations Support Housing, Food, and Stability
The thrift store helps fund a range of wraparound programs, including:
Village Transitional Home: A transitional living program serving eligible single mothers and their children while they work toward employment, life skills, education, family stability, and permanent housing.
Joshua House: A transitional living program for eligible men working toward employment, independence, and stable housing.
Woodwinds Community: Affordable housing with onsite case management and family support services.
Emergency Food Pantry: Emergency food assistance for local families.
Crisis Support & Homeless Diversion: Emergency assistance designed to help prevent homelessness.
Pathways to Healthcare: Access to medical, dental, and mental health support.
Over the past 12 months, New Beginnings reports serving:
1,199 families
3,633 individuals
8,020 resources referred
13,461 volunteer hours
Every item donated to the thrift store becomes part of that larger mission.
Before You Donate: A Fall Cleaning Checklist
As you're cleaning out your home this fall, take a moment to sort your unwanted items into a few simple categories:
Closet Cleanout
Look for clothing, shoes, accessories, and other wearable items that are clean and still in good condition.
Furniture
Have a piece of furniture you no longer need? Don't automatically assume every organization accepts it. Check each nonprofit's requirements first, especially for large items.
Kitchen & Household Items
Housewares, kitchenware, décor, and other household goods can often have a second life with another family.
Books & Electronics
Some organizations accept books and electronics, but donation requirements vary. When in doubt, check before loading up the car.
Toys & Baby Items
Consider gently used children's items, as well as new toys, games, diapers, formula, and baby supplies where accepted.
The Garage
Fall cleaning is a great time to look at the things you've stored away and ask: “Does someone else need this more than I do?”
Donate With Purpose This Fall
Fall cleaning doesn't have to be about simply getting rid of things. It can be about redirecting what you already have toward someone who needs it.
A shirt sitting unworn in the back of your closet could help generate funding for a food pantry. A piece of furniture taking up space in your garage could support a workforce development program. A household item you no longer use could help a family experiencing hardship. And a donation that seems small to you can become one piece of a much larger community response.
At Light Orlando, we believe in the power of bringing organizations, businesses, volunteers, and community members together to Deliver Hope, Together.
So this fall, as you clean out your closet, garage, kitchen, or storage space, don't just clean it out. Give it purpose.
Find a nonprofit partner whose mission speaks to you, check its donation guidelines, and give your gently used items a second life.
When we give what we can, where it's needed, we help create a stronger Central Florida for everyone.
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