Those were the words of Mount Maunganui Salvation Army volunteer Melissa Marshall, who arrived for her shift about 8.45am on Saturday to find more than 20 black garbage bags flying around the Maunganui Rd site’s carpark and piles of clothing left lying on the ground.
A large drop-off of clothes had been left overnight and rummaged through by the morning, leaving her with a clean-up job that would take up her whole shift.
“This is going to take all day,” she said while cleaning up the mess.
“If it had rained, this would all be in the bin and it would all go to waste.”
“It does happen often, not to this extent, but it does happen.”
She had a message for people who went through the bags left outside the shop: remember, the proceeds were for charity and people in the community were in need.
“It must have taken a while to open up all those bags and go through it.
“Please come into the Sallys and have a look through – stuff is pretty cheap and good prices,” she said.
Aleyna Martinez is a multimedia journalist based in the Bay of Plenty. She moved to the region in 2024 and has previously reported in Wairarapa and at Pacific Media Network.