Donations

Thank you for your interest in donating to Transforming the Valley, a program of CVLGBTQ+. Your support helps us serve transgender, nonbinary, and gender-spicy people in the Chippewa Valley.

Monetary donations given via this link are placed in the CVLGBTQ+ general fund for use in TTV and other Community Center programs as needed. Thank you again!

Donate to CVLGBTQ+

Closet Donations

The Free & Queer Community Closet relies on community donations for its continued success. We help people of all shapes and sizes be confident in their desired presentation, so we need a diverse selection of articles available. These guidelines can help you select and organize your donation to make the most impact.

What We Do With Your Donation

Once we receive your donated articles, we perform a quality check on all items and reject items according to our guidelines. Then, we sort, hang, and display all accepted items. Accepted articles quickly end up in the Closet’s inventory, so you should see your donation as part of our next event!

We accept many articles of lightly-used clothing and accessories. The guidelines in this section apply to all donations. Those which apply to masculine or feminine articles are listed below in separate sections.

Please wash and thoroughly dry your donation. We do not currently have the facilities or volunteers to wash every donation; which may cause us to reject items we would otherwise add to our inventory. The space we use at String Theory is used for other events, so we put our inventory into storage between events.

The Closet is an event which primarily serves adults, young adults, and teenagers. We also primarily serve trans, nonbinary, and gender-spicy individuals. This presents some interesting sizing challenges. Articles which stray outside these size boundaries are generally rejected. More information on desired sizing for different areas of the store are provided below.

We always reject articles which meet any of the following criteria:

  • Items with strong unpleasant odors, secondhand smoke
  • Items with stains and/or other visible discoloration
  • Items with rips, tears, and/or holes (unless that’s part of the style)
  • Articles with printed or embroidered imagery/logos (unless they’re incredibly funny and in exceptionally good condition)
  • Fast Fashion brands such as Shein and Temu.

For undergarments, bras, swimwear, and gender-affirming clothing are all acceptable according to our normal guidelines. If you cannot wash your entire donation, please give these a wash. Underwear is only accepted in new, unused condition.

We are always in need of base layers for all presentations. Plain t-shirts, camisoles, tank tops, and other basics tend to be in short supply.

We accept cold-weather gear (jackets and coats) according to our normal guidelines.

Donated formalwear (including formal dresses, suits, and pants) is shared between TTV’s Closet event and CVLGBTQ’s Queer Prom event, but stays under normal guidelines.

Luxury accessories such as real gold, expensive watches, and genuine gemstone jewelry should not be donated to us.

Non-luxury accessories, such as necklaces, rings, ties, bowties, suspenders, scarves, purses, handkerchiefs, bandanas, etc., are graciously accepted.

Masculine Clothing

We see fewer masculine clothing donations than feminine clothing donations. Therefore, our acceptance criteria for masculine clothing is wider.

Sizing

All sizes starting at Youth Large are accepted.

Men’s Big and Tall sizes are in short supply and always appreciated by our stout and lanky clients alike.

We accept pants and shorts starting at a 26" waist (Men’s pants sizing is great, why doesn’t everyone do that?). Flex/stretch waistbands and athletic cuts are friendlier to curvy shapes.

Shoe sizes from Men’s 6 up to and including Men’s 13 are accepted. Both wide and narrow sizes are always helpful.

Style

We love to send people home with flannels and other plaid shirts. Otherwise, it’s hard to go wrong in masculine clothing. Almost everything which passes our quality assurance test ends up in the Closet.

If you really need a style guide to go off of, anything that you could see worn by Adam Sandler’s character in Big Daddy will probably be appreciated.

Feminine Clothing

The number of donated feminine articles far outpaces masculine articles for us, so our acceptance criteria is more narrow.

Sizing

Feminine sizing depends greatly on the clothing label, so giving any size recommendation is a fool’s errand. Keep in mind that we generally serve people with wider ribcages and upper arms than popular brands provide in common sizes.

Plus sized items are always appreciated. For example, good condition items from Westwind, Torrid, and Maurices are almost always inventoried.

Junior sizes are almost always rejected.

Shoe sizes starting at Women’s 10 are accepted. Wide sizes are highly desirable.

Style

Size rather than style tends to count for our feminine population, but we do look for a few criteria in particular. Fits which work for people with wider ribcages, smaller busts, and wider arms are well-loved. Skirts and dresses do go spinny. When they have pockets, they elicit the response you’d expect.

Items of lower quality are put under more scrutiny than those which are built to last.

These guidelines are not law, of course. We see people with all body shapes and sizes and all tastes in fashion.

Cosmetics and toiletries are accepted if they are brand new and sealed.

Unopened hypoallergenic cosmetics are practically worth their weight in gold to us, and we will always graciously accept them.

How to Donate

Donations are accepted at the Chippewa Valley LGBTQ+ Community Center during drop-in hours which are listed on our linked homepage. If you need to schedule an alternative time for donations, or you have other questions, please use the contact information on cvlgbt.org.

While your donated articles are made available at no charge to our clients, the fair-market value of the goods still apply for the donation. All donations are eligible for a written donation receipt. We are required to provide a receipt if the fair-market value of the entire donation is at or above $200. To assess the fair-market value of your donation, you can use a value guide such as Hope Village Gems’ or Goodwill of Northern New England’s. For other questions on the value of your donation, please consult a tax professional who can provide better guidance for your situation.

CVLGBTQ+ is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization, EIN 52-2292725. Most clothing, accessory, cosmetics, and toiletry donations are tax-deductible. No goods or services will be provided in exchange for your donation.

What We Do With Rejected Items

Items which do not meet our guidelines but are still saleable on a thrift store rack are donated on to AbleLight Thrift Shop on London Road in Eau Claire so they do not go to waste and help another amazing cause. Items which cannot be accepted by TTV or AbleLight are provided as scrap fabric at our events. Due to space constraints, we must unfortunately dispose of overflow scrap fabric through landfill waste.