Episode Description
In part one of a two-part series, we talk with Rick Troyer and Jennifer Brink of “Things Forgotten, Not Gone”, a division of Colorado Goodwill. They share expert tips for how to think about the process of downsizing, the services of their organization, and why it’s never too soon to start letting go of ‘stuff’.
“Don’t wait till you’re 70 to downsize and clear up. But you can start when you’re 50, when you become empty nesters or whenever. That’s the time to get rid of things.”
RICK TROYER
Resources Mentioned in this Episode
Things Forgotten, Not Gone: https://goodwillcolorado.org/services/things-forgotten-not-gone/
Goodwill Finds: www.goodwillfinds.com
Shop Goodwill: www.shopgoodwill.com
Other (potentially) Useful Links
We suggest infusing a little gratitude into your day. Here’s a way to begin from Mindful.org: https://www.mindful.org/an-introduction-to-mindful-gratitude/
Transcript
Pat:
Hello, welcome to Going Older Podcast. I’m your co-host, Pat Going.
Amy:
And I am Amy Going Haworth.
On today’s episode, we’re talking with Jennifer Brink and Rick Troyer about downsizing and decluttering.
Jennifer and Rick, we are so excited to have you.
A full confession. My Dad and I tried to have this conversation with just the two of us. And it wasn’t really that interesting. And so what we realized is we needed some experts because we can only get so far downsizing and decluttering because of our limited wisdom about it – just that I would never claim to be an expert in any way, shape, or form.
So as we get started on this podcast today, would love to hear from each of you if you could, tell us a little bit about your role and really what led you into this type of work.
Rick:
Okay. Well, I’m the Manager of Things Forgotten, Not Gone. It’s a Senior Move service, a division of Goodwill. And how I got into this… my previous backgrounds have been in manufacturing, distribution and management.
And the last job I had, our Company was bought out. I moved the Company from Colorado Springs to Arizona. And I did not want to move down there with them because I have parents that are 90 and 86. I could not be that far away from them to take care of them because they’re declining in their health. So I kind of had to take a year and a half sabbatical.
Then this came up and I’m trying to just fill in the gap from the age that I’m in right now until I retire basically. I was too young to retire and and too old to get hired, and this came up. I thought, well, this would be an interesting different type of a job to do for the final job of my career, I guess. Yes. Ha.
Amy:
It’s amazing what happens when things show up at exactly the right time. And it sounds like your story is very much one of those.
Rick:
Yes, yes it is. It just happened to fall into place here so I thought I’d give it a try.
Rick:
Jennifer’s been with Things Forgotten for a long time so I’ll let her explain.
Jennifer:
So I have been doing this for six years or just over six years. I got a little bit sick and I had to make some changes in my life. I got burnt out of my other job and I decided that it was, this is kind of fits in with what I was doing before.
So I like helping people and it just kind of lined up. So that’s what brought me to Goodwill for the Things Forgotten job. So I’ve been here ever since.
Pat:
Were you with Goodwill prior?
Jennifer:
No, I was not. I was hired on the day they purchased Things Forgotten. That was six years ago. Before Goodwill bought Things Forgotten, it was owned by a private party.
She had it for 11 years and sold it to Goodwill when she decided to retire. So it kind of fit in line with Goodwill’s other missions that they were doing within the community for seniors. So they thought that that fit in line with everything. So that’s how Goodwill came about having a Senior Move as a division within the company.
Pat:
Is there anything similar at other Goodwill locations?
Jennifer:
No. This is the only division of Goodwill that has something like a senior Move Manager.
Pat:
Are other Goodwill locations looking at you to emulate this program?
Jennifer:
There was a few years, probably four years ago, another out-of-state state Goodwill reached out and asked how we do it and everything. But it never took off. So as far as I know, we’re the only Goodwill in the business. Yeah this is just specific to Colorado. There’s not a Things Forgotten in any other Goodwill in the nation as far as we know. And I’m almost sure we would know if there was.
Pat:
I’m under the impression that you are very popular and you have a lot of takers.
Rick:
Yeah, we kind of fill a niche for people. As you know, if you’re moving out of a household into a retirement or senior community, you’re generally used to having all kinds of square footage in your house to put things. And when you move into a community, it’s greatly reduced by sometimes half or even more. So if you’re going from a 4,500 square foot house and you moved into a community that’s only 1,500 square feet, you’ve got 3,000 square feet of stuff that you got to do something about and you can’t keep it. So we’re there to try to help go through all of that. We’re helping you with that decision process… to keep, not keep, donate, consign, whatever.
Amy:
When you all talk about Things Forgotten, what exactly is that? And what is the scope of the service?
Rick:
We offer a number of services that we can do. We can help people pack and move and unpack. We have that capability. We can work with movers if they’re moving out of state. If it’s a local move, we work with movers. And with the senior community, a lot of them can’t pack.
So we’re dealing with people that are aged and they might have some physical limits as to how much they can do. They’re not as young as they used to do. They can’t pack and move. So that’s something we can do for them.
And we can also help facilitate working through the process of downsizing or decluttering.
We have no skin in the game, as we like to say, so the decisions we make are pretty easy. But we’re very compassionate with the individuals too, because we know that it’s hard to do for them to let go of things that they’ve accumulated for many many many years and sometimes you just have to let Aunt Sally talk about this vase that she got from her grandmother. Once she talks about it then maybe that’s all she needs.
She can say okay, let’s just go ahead and donate it or this is one of the items that Goodwill can use.
Pat:
Is there such a formal job title as a Move Manager? Is that a term?
Rick:
It is. And it’s actually, I think, a trademarked name with Senior Move Managers. And we are part of a national organization called NASMM, which is the National Association of Senior Move Management.
We take classes, and you have to upgrade every year in order to be part of this organization. That’s kind of like where the professionals of senior move management are located. It’s a national organization. Anybody can identify as a senior move manager, but if you have the accreditation and you take the courses that they offer, you have the expertise – so you’re considered a professional.
When appropriate, we always refer people, if we can’t help them. If you’re moving out to Washington or Helena, Montana or whatever, look and see if there’s somebody that has that NASA certification because they have been trained to know how to work with senior individuals moving.
Amy:
And I, you know, I am a little jealous because it sounds like we’re talking about Senior Move Managers. So is there an age qualification to be able to work with you?
Rick;
No, there isn’t. In fact, that’s one of the things that we’re trying to do – market to younger people. I mean, don’t wait till you’re 70 to downsize and declutter. You can start when you’re 50, when you become empty nesters or whenever. That’s the time to get rid of things when you can actually physically help or whatever. But no, there’s no age limit. Things Forgotten is set up that way because because seniors need more help doing it often because of their physical limitations.
Pat:
Well, in that major transition that you and Jennifer mentioned, that seniors are going from a 3,000 square foot house to an apartment, I can relate. My wife and I are looking at each other over dinner and saying, you know, we never thought we would end up moving back to an apartment. Some of this move is as much mental as physical to work through. I’m curious and I don’t mean to make light of this. I’m going to ask this of Jennifer because she seems more empathetic than Rick. (Laugh) Do you come across tears?
Jennifer:
Yes. Yeah. I am an emotional person. So sometimes we just need to talk with people. It’s hard to get rid of your items and downsize. Sometimes people are forced to move sooner than they thought they would have to. So I’ve seen every scenario. You just kinda walk them through it and give them time to grieve over the situation that they’re now in. So we just go step by step. Sometimes it’s baby steps, and sometimes it’s leaps. Just depends on each situation. No situation has ever been the same. So, you know, you just do it. You just walk them through it and you hold their hand if they need it. And you give them hugs. Yeah, you give them hugs and hope for the best. And usually it works out in the end. We’ve only had a couple of grumpy people at the end, because they didn’t want to move. And their kids had to make them because they were coming out of skilled care or whatever their scenario was. So sometimes they are grumpy, but in the end they’re not mad at me. They’re mad at their circumstances. So they’re just grateful that they were able to get the help that they needed. So we just look at it from the outside perspective and it helps them. So that’s kind of how we deal with that.
Pat:
Well said.
Jennifer:
Thank you.
Rick:
We do use a lot of the past experiences to help people in their individual circumstances. We try not to stress them too much by working long days to help them. Sometimes they can only handle an hour or two per session. And we can tell just by looking at them that they’re frustrated. They can’t do it anymore, and we just say, let’s just stop for the day. We’ll schedule another time in the next week or so. We try to make it as easy as we can on them. We’re very sympathetic to their situation.
Amy:
When you engage with a client going through this, can you just walk us through what is that process like? Do they tend to reach out to you to start? And then is it a series of steps over time? Is there a conversation about what’s gonna work best? Say if we were just starting and you were gonna come help me, what would be the next step?
Rick:
First, we offer a free one-hour consultation. So after we get your phone call, you call and say, hey, I need some help. Instead of trying to explain things over the phone, because we don’t know what your situation is, we need to go look and see where you’re living, what you have around your house, what it is you want to accomplish, and what you want to do. Once we have that idea, then we sit down this is how we would do your individual situation. We would start, you know, maybe in this room or we would start by getting rid of stuff before we even start trying to think about what you’re gonna move or what have you. Every person is a different scenario. So we would, again, come to your home and talk to you after we have toured and listen to exactly what you want done. Some people just, they just wanna have Clutter taken out of their house. They’re not actually moving at all. They just want some to get rid of some items and and they’re a Lot of them are very scared for you to come to your house because they think that you’re gonna judge them And that’s not the case. We don’t judge people by What they have in their house? We’ve seen it all seen some horrific things and You know sometimes with those if they’re not willing to actually want to get rid of things, we just say, you know, we may not be the right people for you to do this.
Pat:
Are the two of you a team when you go in and do that initial look?
Rick:
Yes. We like to do that because she sees things and I see things and we compare notes. Sure. And it’s just much easier to have two sets of eyes and ears on everything.
Pat:
I would think it’d makes people more comfortable when there are two of you.
Rick:
It does. You know, not the one-on-one quite.
Pat:
Did that answer your question, Amy?
Amy:
Yeah, it’s great. It’s great to understand how that works. I will say after my Mom and Dad went to one of your seminars, there was a lot of energetic decluttering that resulted!.
Amy:
And so I would venture to guess, number one, you’re able to inspire people who might otherwise be a little stuck. If you were to offer kind of some some best practices advice for people who want to take a first pass on their own, what you can share?
Jennifer:
Yeah. Our number one suggestion is start small. Don’t go into the crowded garage and start there because you’ll get overwhelmed and burn yourself out. We suggest you to start in the hall closet or a kitchen drawer or the junk drawer or something super simple. That will keep you motivated to go on to the next thing because when you finish something small, you slowly work up to the bigger items. So definitely that’s our number one. Always start small. Again, don’t go big because you’ll burn yourself out and you won’t get anything accomplished.
Amy:
Well, Dad. I’m just gonna ask you – you’ve been doing a lot of this lately. What have you figured out is really working for you and Mom?
Pat:
Well, to her credit, we have made her the project manager on this project. We have the luxury of time, and we’re looking at a good four months before we actually have to move. And so, like you said, Jennifer, easier when we’re not under that time stress. There’s enough stress as it is. Right? So I have found that once you get into it with a little bit of momentum, it actually gets kind of fun. And I make the joke somewhat that I’m discovering things that I did not know I had. You forget about so many items you have. It’s like Christmas, all over again, right? Like that cliche, the journey is that first step.
Amy:
Well, so what happens to the things? As you’re working with people, do some of them end up being resold? It sounds like sometimes there’s a dumpster and items hit the dumpster. Where do most items find a second life?
Rick:
So it depends on where the client wants it to go. Of course, we always try to get people to donate to Goodwill because that’s our mission. But if somebody wants us to send items to the ARC or the Disabled Veterans or wherever. We’ll send it to whomever we want or whomever the client wants. It depends on what the item is. If it’s physical trash or it’s broken, we throw it away. If it’s able to be donated and someone can reuse it or repurpose it, then we’ll donate it. If it’s broken glass, for instance, we’ll put that in a separate pile. We’ll still send it to donation so it can get recycled. And then if it’s something that has some value to it, then we will try to consign it for you. If we can sell it through the e-commerce website that we have, to make a little money for the client and Goodwill that is an option. So it just depends on what the items are. And that consignment part of it is very unique as you can only do that through Things Forgotten. So if you’re in Colorado Springs and you just wanna bring stuff in and consign it with Goodwill, you can’t do that. We have to work with you to do it in order for that to happen. And the reason we do that is because some of the items that people have are more valuable. We can get more money from it by putting it on consignment which will help the Goodwill mission because it’ll bring more money in for everyone. You might have a very valuable vase but if it goes into a store they have a limit on a price of what they can put on it whereas if you’re putting it online we can set a higher price. We can set it however we want to see what can get for it.
Amy:
And on-line seems like it would open up the market a little bit more broad than just the local area. Do you ship?
Rick:
Yeah, it’s nationwide.
Amy:
Okay.
Jennifer:
So anybody might see something on ‘Goodwill Finds’ that’s in Colorado, buy it, and it would ship to them from here.
Amy:
So is it goodwillfinds.com?
Jennifer:
Yes.
Amy:
Okay, I didn’t even know that exists. I’m excited to go out there and see what might be on its way to my house!
Pat:
You’ll might even purchase some items we donated then give them back to us as a Christmas gift!
Amy:
I love that. I love everything about that.
Pat:
That’d be a classic.