In this 2012 photo, volunteer Janice Phillipps arranges items that were dropped off at the swap table. (Photo by Alice Waugh)
By Alice Waugh
All of the volunteers who staff the town’s “swap table” were fired in a letter distributed to them by a DPW staff member at the transfer station on Wednesday morning.
The DPW is in the process of building a new swap shed “that will allow the Highway Department staff more of an opportunity to manage the swap area,” said the letter signed by DPW Superintendent Chris Bibbo. “In relation to the new swap shed, beginning Wednesday, November 6, 2019, we will no longer need the services of the volunteers.” The letter also thanked them for their service. Work on the new shed began last spring.
Bibbo’s letter was dated October 15 but was not handed to volunteers until October 23. The transfer station is open only on Wednesdays and Saturdays.
The swap table volunteers manage the hundreds of items that Lincoln residents drop off for others to take or donate. Items include everything from children’s toys to exercise equipment, dishes, books, housewares — and once even a Prada handbag.
Their work includes unpacking boxes of items, sorting them, and placing them on shelves as well as removing broken, dirty or otherwise unacceptable items and putting them in the trash dumpster. They also redirect items that can be recycled such as clothing and textiles, and they keep the swap table and existing shed tidy.
Swap table volunteer Ellen Raja puts aside usable bedding, kitchenware and small pieces of furniture and delivers them to Household Goods in Acton every Thursday. The organization donates the items to people including the recently homeless, survivors of domestic violence, and those with low incomes, illness, or disability.
Raja said she and the other volunteers were “shocked” when they got the termination notices yesterday, but she noted that DPW employees in the past have disparaged the swap table, saying most of the items were worthless and should just go in the trash anyway.
(Raja is not technically a volunteer; in exchange for her time, she earns an abatement on her property taxes through the town’s Senior Work-Off Program.)
A second volunteer reached by phone Wednesday night declined to comment. Bibbo also did not respond to an email sent Wednesday afternoon. Other volunteers in the past have included Bernadette Quirk, Sue Stason, and Janice Phillipps.
“Strange timing. I plan to express my disappointment to Chris Bibbo and [DPW assistant] Susan Donaldson,” said Recycling Committee co-chair Laura Berland, who resigned “for a variety of reasons — one being the fact that I had been on [the committee] for many years and felt it was time to move on.”
In June, the Lincoln Squirrel published a letter to the editor from Berland thanking the swap table volunteers for their work. She noted that the committee and volunteers have also donated books dropped off at the swap table to the Lincoln Public Library’s monthly book sale as well as More Than Words in Waltham.
“The more items taken away, the more we keep out of the landfill and the less the town spends in tipping fees,” Berland wrote. “At the end of the day, many of the items left in the swap area are thrown out, as there is a need to make room for more that keeps on coming — the less left over, the better.
“Lincoln is lucky to have the swap area. As co-chair, I have been asked to speak to the recycling committees of other towns who would very much like to set one up but struggle to get the Department of Public Works to agree. We are appreciative of the support Chris Bibbo, director of DPW, gives to the swap effort here in Lincoln,” Berland wrote.
“How are they [the DPW] going to manage taking care of everything? In my opinion it’s going to be a colossal mess,” Raja said.