Southland charity shops have received an influx of donations, and shoppers, as many stores re-opened under new Alert Level 2 restrictions. 

With people having had seven weeks at home in lockdown, many have taken the opportunity to have a vigorous spring-clean and now a huge amount of pre-loved items are turning up on charity shop's doorsteps. 

A lot of charity shops have opened to accept donations only at this stage, as they take this time being back in store to sort through the vast amount of donations and prepare their stores to adhere to the new COVID-19 health and safety guidelines.

For many this includes operating reduced opening hours, allowing limited numbers in stores at any one time, contact-tracing, providing hand sanitizer and implementing a "stand down" period for donations; where items aren't touched for at least 48-72 hours to ensure no germs are transferred. 

The Salvation Army Gore Manager Jade Taylor said it had been “a bit scary" having to manage all of the new safety protocols as well as the backlog of donations they have sort through, but it was exciting to be back.

"We're really lucky we didn't have much dropped off during lockdown, but we had five truck loads dropped off the day before that we haven't been able to sort through till now."

She said the Gore store would start taking donations on Tuesday (May 19) after they’d had time to get organised. 

Orphans Aid International opened its Invercargill store to shoppers on Thursday and had "queues out the door". Its chief executive Sue Van Schreven said they’d had "carloads" of donations come through, but it was great to see things humming again. 

The lock-down has been difficult for charities who rely on earning a big chunk of their income through their charity shops. But Orphans Aid has been particularly creative in its response to the restrictions of lock-down by selling "mystery bargain boxes" online.

These banana boxes, filled with a lucky dip of quality second-hand goodies, were being sold for $50 each. 

A child's mystery box ready to be sent from Orphans Aid International.

Ms Van Schreven said the boxes had been so popular they’d had to employ two extra staff to manage the demand and had decided to keep the initiative running permanently.  

"It's all started as we couldn't open the doors in Level 3 but it's really taken off... people love the value and they love getting a surprise."

She said so far, the team had packed and sold 40 boxes throughout the Southland region. 

Op-shop mystery boxes from Orphans Aid International, packaged up and ready for delivery.

Winton Salvation Army’s op-shop is still closed but the Invercargill Salvation Army managed to open its doors to eager shoppers on Thursday. 

Salvation Army corps officer Gavin Rivett said they managed to get things up and running early in the Invercargill store to keep up with demand and there had been a great community response from people donating and shopping.

The only op-shop the SPCA opened in Southland was its Tay Street store in Invercargill and it was now operating reduced hours. 

Hospice Southland was open for donations only at its Yarrow Street and Windsor stores and community funding manager Kara Glover said they were "very busy".

Ms Glover said op-shops still faced a big mission ahead to get things up and running smoothly again. She said lockdown had brought about more instances of people dropping off dirty clothes or unsalable items and urged people to please take extra care to clean clothes properly before donating them. 

"We love getting donations, but we don't want to become a dumping ground for people," she said. 

Any items that could not be sold had to be taken to the refuse station at a cost to the charity, so charity shops all over the region urged people to please be vigilant when dropping off items. 

“If you wouldn’t be embarrassed to give an item to a friend, then it’s probably okay to give to us,” Ms Schreven said. 

Ms Glover also said some shops are too small to be able to effectively maintain at least 1m social distancing between customers so they would have to wait until Level 1 to re-open. 

This is also the case with some SPCA op-shops in Southland.