By Mario Racicot
Director of E-commerce
Catholic Social Services of Southern Nebraska
Last spring, a wonderful donor dropped off several boxes of china, sterling silver, and antiques. She had been clearing out her basement and wanted to pass on the items to Catholic Social Services, to sell on eBay. A few months later, we sold her sterling silver for a little over $2,000. I reached out to share the news and she sent me this response:
“GREAT NEWS for CSS and for your ingenuity and ability to turn ‘basement boxes’ into revenue. I was so thrilled when CSS announced online sales for donations, I knew it would be a perfect place for my family’s items! Their value was obvious, but YOU showed the talent and ability to effectively market them and turn it around for CSS! I hope to encourage others to consider CSS, as they clean out estates.”
We are so thankful for this donor’s generosity and excitement for our e-commerce efforts here at CSS. We wanted to take a chance to give you an inside look at how we help your “basement boxes” bring hope to our community. 
Our e-commerce program is proud that we have now entered our third year in the effort of reselling your items. In these past few years, we have established effective and respected practices on key platforms for e-commerce. These include eBay, Facebook Marketplace, Mercari, Poshmark, and Depop. We have invested significant time, energy and focus, to ensure the e-commerce program remains mission driven and client centric. We have a seamless process of photographing, shelving, listing, and shipping items, as well as a robust inventory management system to keep thousands of items organized and categorized. We are proud of our one business day shipping and our more than 2,000 happy customers who have ordered and received items – in almost every state in the Union and in 15 countries around the world!
While establishing an effective and growing e-commerce operation, we have been met with the challenge to infuse this transactional world with relational values and moments because, after all, CSS is most concerned with the souls that we serve. So, how have we kept our program relational? One way is through relationships with our donors and through digital encounters with our buyers.
It is important to remember in e-commerce that a sale is not just a sale. Beyond the hope that the revenue from the sale of your “basement item” can give through CSS, a sale can also move hearts and create a wonderful experience or memory for a stranger. One story from late last year highlights the relational aspect we seek in our transactional world.
We received a donation of a set of vintage autumn harvest Pyrex mixing bowls. A buyer from Ohio purchased the bowl set. The items made the typical journey through photos, listings, packaging, and shipping, and we considered the transaction complete. However, we were delighted to receive the following message from the buyer; a message that reminded us that a simple transaction can be transformed into a relational encounter and that your donations bring so much joy while bringing revenue:
“I just purchased these two bowls and I am SO EXCITED. I am 63 and my sweet Momma gave these to me as a wedding gift 42 years ago. The 444 broke into a million pieces Thanksgiving Day because it was placed in the microwave too long (sorry to share this story), but I cried!!! She has been gone 17 years and a lot of memories of many celebrations were in that bowl. So today I say Merry Christmas to you AND me… even though it’s not my original bowl, I can now stir more memories! Thank you.”
That thank you belongs to you, our donors. We are blessed by your generous donations. We continue to encourage you – as you organize, declutter, or clean out your homes – to consider CSS and our efforts to extend the life of your items and provide them an opportunity for someone else to use. Whether they will benefit a client here at home, or a buyer miles away, we can provide your items a new home. If we can’t regift or resell them, we will make sure they are recycled properly. If you have items in your house that you would consider high end or high revenue, contact us and let us research and sell those items, in order to bring the most amount of good out of your donations.
Thank you for your generosity and thank you for supporting Hope in the Good Life through CSS. The work we do would be impossible without the support of our community and you! Please contact me with any questions or donation requests you may have at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. God bless you all!
