How John Turns Garbage into Charity Gold
When John Ellacott talks garbage, someone on the island benefits. For the past 12 years, the owner of Salt Spring Garbage Services has proved the old proverb that where there’s muck, there’s brass. And a lot of that brass has been plowed back into the community.
Every year John and his wife Carla put the proceeds of the “Blackburn Mall,” the transfer station’s store of dropped-off jumble, to good use. Thanks to the Mall, that unwanted armchair, abandoned Teddy bear or well-thumbed book finds its way to a new owner. “One person’s junk is another person’s treasure,” says John. “If you can’t find it at the Mall, wait a bit . . .”
And the many hundreds of small donations (never payments) from islanders who have found their treasures there go toward the Ellacotts’ chosen charities. Annually, they donate $2,000 to the Lady Minto Hospital Foundation and a further $2,000 to the Salt Spring Island Foundation.
Every now and then a big-ticket item will find its way into John’s ca…
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