BOISE, Idaho — The Idaho Youth Ranch has started collecting donations once again after an aggressive fire broke out at its distribution center completely ruining millions of dollar’s worth of donated goods according to CEO Scott Curtis.
After the fire broke out at the Idaho Youth Ranch’s distribution center on Irving, Interfaith Sanctuary quickly stepped up to help.
“Jodi called me the day after the fire and said, ‘You know, we aren’t planning to start construction on our new facility until the spring, so we have a few months if you could use the space,’” Curtis said.
Jodi Peterson-Stigers, executive director of Interfaith Sanctuary, said it seemed like the right thing to do since the space was sitting empty while they prepared for remodels.
“We didn’t want to see their business or their employees or anything like that get too much more impacted than what already happened with that devastating fire,” she said.
The fire ruined all items at the distribution center from materials in the yard to all of the clothing inside. So they used Interfaith’s state street location as a temporary distribution center, allowing them to start collecting donations again just three weeks later.
“We were able to set up our distribution center so now we’re able to receive the goods and sort them and get them back out to the stores in an efficient way and that’s because we were able to set up our temporary distribution center thanks to Interfaith Sanctuary and the city working with us,” Curtis said.
“It's not often you just have an empty building just sitting around not being used right? and so, its been hard to see that building sit idle,” she said. It feels good that good work is being done in it while we continue the process of getting into that building.”
So while you can drop off items to stores again, Idaho Youth Ranch is asking the public to remain patient and look to donate goods that can be used right now like summer clothes.
