Household Goods – Helping People Make a Home

The Mission

Household Goods provides a full range of donated furniture and household items, free of charge, to help people in need make a home.

The Need

More people than ever before are being referred to us for help furnishing their homes. Thanks to our volunteers, generous donors, financial supporters, and involved community partners, Household Goods is meeting this growing need. In 2024, we furnished more than 3,100 homes for over 5,000 adults and 4,000 children.

Since it began in 1990, Household Goods has furnished 57,000 households from across Massachusetts and has provided families and individuals in need with more than 1 million household items large and small.

The people who come to Household Goods inspire us by their stories, their strength, and their resilience. Many are rebuilding their lives after experiencing domestic violence, major illness, addiction, homelessness, fire, job loss, or natural disaster.

They are referred by hundreds of social service agencies that serve vulnerable, low-income populations across Massachusetts. Our referral network relies on Household Goods to help the people they serve live independently, with dignity and hope.

The Story

Household Goods began in 1990 when Barbara and Ira Smith offered to help a Salvadoran refugee who fled her country with her children and little else. The Smiths posted a notice asking for usable household items for the family and offered their carport as a collection point. The Smiths soon became aware there were many more families in the region that could not afford basic household essentials. They began appealing to surrounding communities for donated goods, which they used to help one family at a time furnish a home and begin new lives.

Since that first act of kindness, Household Goods has grown organically, from the Smiths’ helping one family, to a local church basement, to an expanded storage and operational space that now totals 28,000 square feet with space to store twenty storage containers and trailers of donated furniture. Along the way, Household Goods has embraced the passion, skills, and commitment of volunteers to achieve the growth necessary to meet community demand.

How You Can Help

Donate Goods: Household Goods provides a full-range of good quality donated furniture and household items, free of charge, to 3,000 families in need each year. To furnish these homes, Household Goods needs a steady stream of clean, usable:

● beds, dressers, couches, tables, chairs

● dishes, flatware, pots, pans;

● sheets, towels, blankets and comforters;

To make sure that we can accept your items, please first check the guidelines, then double check that your items are clean, complete, and in good working order. We cannot provide our clients with broken, chipped, torn, stained, incomplete, unusable or recalled items, and therefore cannot accept them.

Donations can be dropped off at Household Goods, 530 Main Street, on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays from 9am to noon. Household Goods offers limited pick-up service in Acton and surrounding towns.

We also partner with two organizations who will pick up your donations and deliver them to Household Goods (fee-based) no matter where you live in Massachusetts: ● ReMARKable Donations, through Mark’s Moving & Storage; and ReSupply, a veteran-owned organization

Volunteer: Volunteers – adults and teens (age 14+) – are needed to help provide this essential service to families in need. We have a variety of roles to meet your availability and interest, Monday through Saturday, including:

● Help clients select furnishings for their home

● Move items into our center and onto clients’ trucks

● Prepare items for our clients

Groups are welcome! Bring a group of friends, coworkers, or neighbors for a fun and rewarding volunteer experience. Groups and individuals can also host a drive for the always needed smaller items – towels, blankets or kitchen items.

Donate funds: Alongside the invaluable contributions of donated goods and volunteer hours, financial support is critical to the sustainability and growth of Household Goods. Financial contributions help sustain our operations; allow us to grow and serve more families in need; and adapt to the evolving needs of the community, thus ensuring that more people in Massachusetts can experience the dignity and stability of a furnished home.