If your couch is still in decent shape, donating beats the landfill. The catch is that every charity has its own list of what it will and will not take, and “free pickup” usually means free pickup from your curb, not from your living room. Here is who takes what in Mesa, and what to do with the stuff nobody accepts.
Read this first: two rules that trip everyone up
- Almost nobody takes mattresses, and the one that does charges. Habitat will not. Sunshine Acres caps it at two years old. St. Vincent de Paul will take a mattress or box spring, but at $50 each, up to three, so it is not part of the free pickup. If yours is older or stained, it is going to the landfill either way.
- Free pickup is curbside pickup. Charities send a driver and a truck, not a moving crew. If the dresser is upstairs and you cannot get it down, a free pickup does not solve your problem. St. Vincent de Paul is the one that will come inside, and they charge for it (details below).
Habitat for Humanity ReStore
The Habitat for Humanity Central Arizona ReStore is the best option for furniture, and it is the one most people in the East Valley overlook. Sales fund Habitat homes locally.
- They take: furniture, working appliances (8 years old or newer), cabinets, countertops, doors, hardware, light fixtures, tools, lumber 6 feet and longer, and new tile in quantities of 200 square feet or more.
- They will not take: mattresses of any kind, carpet, paint, chemicals, waterbeds, clothing, or used sinks, toilets, and tubs. (Used ceiling fans in working shape are fine, one of the few places that takes them.)
- Upholstered furniture must be clean and undamaged. Tears, stains, or pet damage mean it gets declined, and the driver makes that call at your house.
- Pickup for larger items gets scheduled through their HaulBuddy system or at (623) 551-6000. Confirm any pickup fee when you book.
- The East Valley catch: there is no ReStore in Mesa. The closest one is in Tempe, at 3210 S. McClintock Dr. If you are dropping off rather than scheduling a pickup, that is your drive.
Directions to the Tempe ReStore
St. Vincent de Paul
The Society of St. Vincent de Paul runs the most flexible pickup in the Phoenix metro, and they are the only one on this list that will come inside your house for it.
- They take: most gently used furniture, appliances, and household or clothing items packed in bags or boxes.
- They will not take: tube televisions, wet merchandise, large desks, waterbeds, used carpet, or appliances that do not work.
- Free standard pickup covers standard donations, and it is curbside (driveway or open garage counts, with someone home). Schedule at least 3 days ahead. Pickups run Monday through Friday, 8:00am to 4:00pm, so somebody has to be home on a weekday.
- Priority in-home service is the one where they remove items from inside the house. It starts at $110 and goes up with the size of the load. That one books at 2 days ahead.
- Pickup scheduling line: (602) 254-3338.
Sunshine Acres Children's Home
Sunshine Acres is the one on this list actually based in Mesa, at 3405 N. Higley Rd., and it is the one most people miss.
- Standard pickup is free, with a stated wait of one to two weeks. Book it the day you decide, not the week of the move.
- Everything has to be on the first floor, in the garage, or outside, already disconnected and disassembled. Their drivers do not use stairs.
- A priority pickup comes within 48 hours for a fee they do not publish. Ask when you call.
- They will not take anything contaminated, hazardous, ripped, stained, scratched, or heavy with pet hair, and no mattress more than two years old. The driver has the final say at the door.
- Donation pickup line: (480) 981-4114 extension 600.
Goodwill of Central Arizona
Goodwill of Central Arizona has the most drop-off locations around Mesa by a wide margin, which makes it the easy answer for anything you can fit in your own vehicle.
- They take almost everything from household items to cars, with hazardous materials being the hard exception. Donations are tax-deductible and they recycle what they cannot sell.
- Drop-off is the play here. Their home pickup runs through a third-party partner (ReSupply) rather than a Goodwill truck, and that service charges a fee.
- Use the Goodwill location finder to pick the closest Mesa donation center, since they open and move locations often enough that any list goes stale.
Salvation Army: read this before you call
For years the answer to “who picks up furniture for free in Phoenix?” was the Salvation Army truck. That local pickup service has ended. Half the donation guides online have not caught up, so people still call and get told no.
You can still donate by finding a staffed drop-off location through satruck.org. They now point people toward ReSupply, a fee-based third-party pickup service, for anything you cannot haul yourself.
Three more Mesa options worth a call
Smaller than the big three, all based in Mesa, and each one takes furniture. Rules and pickup availability change, so call before you load the truck.
- Stardust Building Supplies, Mesa Reuse Center at 1720 W. Broadway Rd. The place for building materials, cabinets, doors, fixtures, and furniture from a remodel. They work with contractors and haulers, which is where most of my remodel loads go. stardustbuilding.org
- Sunshine Acres Children's Home, Mesa. Takes furniture donations for the home and its thrift operation. Call 480-981-4114 ext. 600 to ask what they need right now. sunshineacres.org
- House of Refuge, Mesa. Furnishes homes for families coming out of homelessness, so good furniture goes straight into a house. 480-988-9395 or info@houseofrefuge.org. houseofrefuge.org
Quick answer: who should I call?
- Good couch, you can get it to the curb: St. Vincent de Paul free pickup, or Habitat ReStore pickup.
- Building materials, cabinets, doors, working appliances: Habitat ReStore, every time. They are built for it.
- Small stuff that fits in your car: Goodwill drop-off.
- It is upstairs, or heavy, or you cannot lift it: St. Vincent de Paul in-home service at $110 and up, or a hauler.
- Mattress, torn couch, broken dresser, water damage: nobody takes it. It is a landfill trip. See our Mesa dump and landfill guide for hours and fees, or, if it is specifically the couch, our couch removal guide compares every way to get rid of one.
Where we come in (and where we do not)
Honest version: if everything you have is donatable and you can get it to the curb, use the charities above. It is free, and they do good work with it. You do not need us.
Where hiring someone actually makes sense is the mixed pile, which is most piles. A garage cleanout is usually a couch that a charity wants, a mattress nobody wants, three bags of trash, and a dead water heater. Splitting that across a charity pickup, a landfill run, and your own back is a whole weekend. We take the entire pile in one trip, drop the usable pieces at donation ourselves, and haul the rest. You get the flat price before we load anything.
Either way, the goal is the same: keep the good stuff out of the landfill. If this guide sent you to St. Vincent de Paul instead of to us, that is a win. Our junk removal service is here if the pile is bigger than the charities will handle.