Signal Mountain neighborhoods awoke Monday morning to find their mailboxes sporting bright pink bags emblazoned “Clothing for a Cause.”
“They were on every mailbox on my street,” one woman said. “There was no way you could miss them.”
Still, Police Chief Mike Williams said, it was mid-afternoon before someone thought to contact him and let him know what was going on.
“They said the bags had been hung on bicycles, all over the place,” said the police chief, who wasted no time in dealing with the situation.
“The people handing out these bags in Signal Mountain DO NOT have a permit,” Chief Williams wrote on the police department’s facebook page. “Please call us at 886-2123 or 698-25525 to report it if you see them, and we will come advise them of same.”
In the meantime, he said, he advises people not to donate to the group.
Signal is far from the first community to be peppered with the pink bags, which have sprung up in communities crisscrossing the nation.
For example, in Greenwood, Ind., the bags’ sudden appearance prompted the Better Business Bureau there to launch an investigation.
In Flowery Branch, Ga., where the bags were orange instead of pink, Police Chief David Spillers warned residents against giving the solicitors anything.
“I would not personally contribute anything to them,” he told the local newspaper.
On Signal, the bags came with a blue information card asking for donations such as men, women and children’s clothing, and indicating that the donations will go to an organization called Hope For Domestic Violence.
Donors were asked to fill out the cards with their name, email address, home address and phone number for a tax donation receipt.
“We will be at your home this WEDNESDAY to pick up donations for Hope,” the cards read. “Hope helps women and children who have been affected by domestic violence by providing food, shelter, jobs and other basic needs. We need women’s men’s and children’s CLOTHING, MISCELLANEOUS AND SMALL HOUSEHOLD ITEMS, kitchenware, electronics, small appliances, shoes, belts and purses.”
Residents whose donations will not all fit in the pink bag should place their extra bags and boxes next to the pink bag, the card advised.