1. Agencies that have been cleared to participate may come to shop on Monday, Wednesday or Friday at 10:30 a.m. (Please be on time.) Please choose one day as your regular pickup day, and come weekly on that day. If something happens and you can't come that day, you may make it up another day that week. It's not necessary to call if you are substituting your regular day.
2. If you have been called for a special pickup, generally we like to have agencies with big trucks use our docks between 2:00 and 3:00 p.m., and we will assign you a dock time.
3. Please come in the front door NO EARLIER than 10:15 and wait in the waiting room until we call agencies out to shop. There is hot coffee available while you wait. You may return empty crates, etc., to the warehouse after 10:30.
4. Please do not park in front of the large roll-up doors until after agencies have been through the "walk around". Please be gracious and weekly take turns to allow others to have this close parking space.
5. The white Needs/Haves board on the wall and all flyers and paperwork in the front office are for our participating families only. All agency paperwork is in the rack on the east wall (where the clipboards are) in the warehouse.
6. Please use our rolling carts, shopping carts and hand trucks to move your items through the warehouse. Be aware at all times of any equipment that may be utilized around you, and ALWAYS GIVE EQUIPMENT THE RIGHT OF WAY. This is for your safety! Please, no more than three people per agency in the warehouse, and stay together in one group.
7. As you shop, please leave the area orderly. (Put signs back where they belong, remove boxes you empty, close refrigerator doors, etc.) Take only the items that have been designated for agencies. Take only what your agency will use; in other words, for the group of people you have indicated on your survey form.
8. Please weigh your products and write the date and total weight on your personalized pink sheet for the month. Place your sheet - one sheet per month - in alphabetical order in the book. (Use your full agency name on the pink sheet.)
9. Please be finished shopping and leave the parking lot by 12:00 p.m. We have donations arriving at 12:00 p.m.
10. Danner boots are available to agencies to give to their program participants only. Please use our Agency Request Forms for Danner Boots. When you leave these with us, we will fill the approved requests and provide the boots, hopefully the following week. Check the white board at the bottom of the stairs to see if your boot order is ready.
11. Birch Community Services, Inc. is a self-supporting agency. Our families pay $50 monthly to cover all operational costs (rent, gas, utilities, shrink wrap, etc.) and pay for our six employees. We gladly give other agencies about 30% of our product. We are asking agencies that come on a regular/semi-regular basis please also give us a $50 monthly service fee unless you are REGULARLY reciprocating with product. This service fee is due by the end of the current month. (e.g.: July is due by July 31^st. Months can be paid in advance.) As of the May 2004 board meeting, it was voted by the Board of Directors that an agency will receive a late notice if their service fee is paid after the current month. After three late notices, the agency will be asked to not participate any longer. This is the same policy we employ with our participating families. Also, any participating agency that does not attend for one month, and hasn't contacted us, will be removed from the "actively participating" list, and replaced with another agency.
12. Please make sure we have a current Agency Survey Form (and required attachments) on file. We will update with you once a year.
13. If you have special needs for a special event, please let us know. If we can, we will help you with that need. Request forms are available at the front desk and are due no less than a week before the event.
14. Generally, we do not provide childcare for agencies. In an emergency situation you may call the warehouse and see if there will be childcare available for you.
15. You may find clipboards, shopping sheets, boot request forms, and extra agency guideline sheets in the rack by the east warehouse door (next to the shopping carts). Please do not use our "family" forms for boots, etc.

Thanks for helping us to be as organized and efficient as possible!