Coronavirus News: Local realtor tackles spring cleaning for New Yorkers

Friday, May 8, 2020

Naveen Dhaliwal reports on a local realtor who is tackling Spring cleaning for entire communities in New York City.

NEW YORK CITY (WABC) -- Despite the complications that the coronavirus pandemic presents, one man is tackling Spring cleaning for entire communities in New York City.

With nearly two dozen pickups on the schedule, moving crews are busy helping New Yorkers with their Spring cleanup.

"Right now we're all stuck at home -- and clutter is building up and it's Spring so everybody wants to get rid of clutter," Spring Clean Challenge Creator Scott Harris said.

Thanks to realtor Scott Harris, his idea of the Spring Clean Challenge is allowing well-to-do, but unwanted items to be reused.

Harris says he called six or seven moving companies and asked if they could help pick-up and transport donations.

Just like that, six companies including Moishe's Moving Systems, whose business had been reduced in the pandemic, began offering free scheduled donation pickups using all safety precautions.

All the items will go to Goodwill stores. The CEO Katy Gaul-Stigge, says Spring is their busiest time of the year and they're really relying on these donations to keep up with the need once they reopen their doors.

"We are making sure the items are left to sit so the contamination, if it did have, has time to resolve," Gaul-Stigge said.

So far, there are pickups in four boroughs: Manhattan, Bronx, Queens and Brooklyn. To schedule a pick-up, you can sign-up online.

"It will happen outside of the boroughs, my hope is we are out of business soon, that we're back to work and all these donation centers are open so people can really enforce -- but until then we're planning to continue this," Harris said.

This one idea, now three weeks later, has resulted in hundreds of donated items that will be given to those who really need them.

All of this has happened because of people coming together.