Today residents from Federal Way are planning to bang pots and pans at 8 p.m. to celebrate the first day since May 2020 that cars have not been blocking home driveways and access to small businesses as they wait to donate to the Ballard Goodwill.
Backed up to Centralia for much of this last year, hundreds of South Sound residents say the line to donate to the Ballard location of the non-profit used goods store was an additional traffic nightmare they didn’t need.
“As if living anywhere near Fife isn’t enough, we have also been subjected to a horrifying parade of Pinterest-inspired crafts gone wrong,” said Federal Way resident Walter Bluff. “We wish Tukwila soon gets sweet relief from witnessing Seattleites’ frightening array of weird-looking lamps they couldn’t even pawn off on their local Buy Nothing groups.”
Those who’ve waited more than a year to donate to the Ballard location, despite reminders that several other nearby Goodwill locations have almost no donation line at all, say they’re celebrating too.
“I read on NextDoor that the lineup was starting to shrink and only stretch to Tukwila, so I ran out in between meetings today to see if I could get in the queue before it could spill all the way to Kent again,” explained long-time Ballard resident Sarah Mills as she waited in a Subaru that’s been loaded with old furniture since last October. “I was pleasantly surprised that I was able to get in line near IKEA, where I bought most of this furniture that’s about three months away from turning back into sawdust. With any luck, I’ll finally have all this dropped off by the end of the month.”
WSDOT data suggests that, by November, the Ballard Goodwill queue may finally shrink down even further and only stretch to the Fremont Bridge.
