Given that I live in an apartment with an exercise machine, drum set, and years of salvaged inventory I'm trying to sell, I clearly can't take everything I find back with me. Whether it's a cost/space decision, or simply that I didn't have the hands to carry them at the time, I still try to make an impact by leaving items prominently displayed away from the garbage/recycling piles that will be picked up within hours. I do this a lot with nice clean clothes and shoes for the homeless to take since they're often out late at night. I also do this with sealed new food.
My favorite story is when I found a nice $100+ faux fur coat in the cold. I chose not to take it because reselling clothes is difficult, and left it on a railing for someone to hopefully find by the morning. Well, as I walked away to the next pile, I looked back to see that a homeless man had magically appeared and was already walking the other way with the jacket on. Magic.
Another nice story was when I found two nice vintage paintings in a tied off black garbage bag. I took one and sold it for about $150 if I remember correctly. In hindsight, I should've taken the second one, but I'd left it up against a tree. While up the street looking at another pile, I saw two happy women walking away with it like they'd won the lottery.
The same thing happened when I had antique stoneware pottery on the curb a few months ago. A woman actually walked up to me and asked if she could have a piece, since she knew exactly what it was and collected them. I told her it was all hers, and she ran down the street to rejoin her friends telling them about her good fortune. This was all because I took the time to take pottery out of the bag and set them up in a small display on the sidewalk. How many people do you know that'd do that?
People either care enough to act, or they actually don't really care that much.
Here are just a few examples of items I've removed from bags and left away from piles. While many may not have been claimed by the time the trucks came, at least I gave them a chance.
I've been doing this for 7 years, and this isn't even 1%.
I put this comfortable folding chair in the middle out from my own apartment. A homeless woman took it and I see her around my neighborhood sleeping in it all the time. I even went up to her one day to tell her I was the one who put it on the sidewalk and that I was glad she found it. She was thankful.
This keyboard above was for a vintage Nintendo system.
(Most pics are dark since I'm out in the middle of the night for most or just before sunrise.)
Again, I have hundreds of examples of pictures like this. I got these after 3 minutes of scrolling through my phone. The quality of this post isn't in the number of pictures, but in the miles I walk and hours I spend uncovering the items in the first place.
Thanks for following along,
Matt