What is a vegetable spoon, and why does it cost a month’s rent? One or more lucky nonprofits might soon find out.
Socialite Kim Kardashian has announced she will donate wedding gifts she received from her ill-fated, 72-day-long marriage to NBA forward Kris Humphries. Among the items on the former couple’s registry: a $3,000 set of 20 gold napkin rings, a $7,500 vase, an $800 whiskey decanter and, yes, a pair of vegetable spoons worth $1,250 each.
The value of the gifts is estimated at more than $100,000. This past March, the reality TV star donated $200,000, or twice the estimated value of all the wedding gifts, to The Dream Foundation in Santa Barbara, Calif. It is unknown to which charity or charities Kardashian will donate the actual gifts. Neither she nor her representatives returned requests for comment.
“What is a charity going to do with a Tiffany picture frame or an onyx vase?,” complained a wedding guest to the New York Post who the newspaper did not identify.
The answer: Sell them on eBay and make some serious cash. Unsurprisingly, some charities are chomping at the bit to get their hands on the items.
“We love these kinds of donations to our stores,” said Ray DuPont, national stores committee chair for the Society of St. Vincent de Paul (SVdP), based in St. Louis, Mo. SVdP has approximately 420 thrift stores nationwide, the profits from which go to support the nonprofit’s programs. Vintage and higher priced items are sold to specialty shoppers. “When a high-priced item is donated we will sometimes also use eBay to get the best price. Because all of the profits from the stores go back in assisting the poor, we also like to make a profit,” said DuPont.
“I think eBay will probably be the best bet,” said Bob Brookheart, a volunteer with The Salvation Army in Elizabeth City, N.C. “If (one of Kardashian’s gifts) came here, I would say we would take it. We’d wait for permission from division headquarters to sell it at auction.”
Brookheart works in the store’s book section, and sometimes comes across rare and expensive books. Until recently, they would be sold as any other book. Brookheart began researching the prices of valuable-looking books. He said some are worth hundreds, even thousands of dollars, and that he’s just waiting for the green light from division headquarters to sell them on eBay. A $600 coffee pot would go up on eBay right along with them.
Virginia Klemm, vice president of St. Vincent de Paul (SVdp), Des Moines executive board in Iowa, had a slightly different suggestion, which might work for charities that do not have retail operations like SVdP or the Salvation Army: “I would love to have any of the items to use as a raffle. This would help us with paying for our store and our learning center.”
