Get organized—and help needy families at the same time.

Next time you clean your closet or store seasonal clothes, please donate your used items to Connecticut Quest for Peace. Your recycled items will be put to good use by the poor. Among the most desirable donations are those in the following categories:

• Clothing - for all seasons

• School supplies

• Household and office items

• Sports equipment

• Medical supplies

• Hygiene supplies

• Musical Instruments

• Tools

• Packing items

For more details see the Wish Lists.

You can drop donations at two Connecticut locations

Please bag or box your clean, gently used items, label them “CT Quest” and leave them at one of two Connecticut drop-offs:

• CT Quest for Peace warehouse (adjacent to William Evans Painting Co.), 394 Main Street, Bridgeport, CT. Bill Evans, generously donates storage and packing space to CT Quest. Please make arrangements to leave your donation in Bridgeport by contacting Bill at (203) 216-2115. Donations are accepted on the Saturdays when the warehouse is open.

• Bill Evan's home garage at 11 Westfair Drive, Westport, CT 06880. You can drop off items any time that is convenient for you.

Call CT Quest for bulky item pick-up

If you’d like to donate large or bulky items, please contact us to arrange pick-up.

• While we do not ordinally send furniture in our cargo containers, Bill does help recent immigrants to our country by giving them whatever we have that they might need so that they can create a new home in our country. Bill will pick up furniture that is in GOOD CONDITION. Basically, Bill assists our new neighbors with whatever they may need to set up their new lives in the USA.

• Normally, you cannot give away bedding, but Bill will accept it as long as it is in GOOD condition.

  • Beds & mattresses, box springs, metal frames or bed frames.

  • NO king size beds.

  • Tables & chairs

  • Comfortable living room furniture.

  • In addition, we give away any household items that we may have in our warehouse.

You can reach CT Quest for Peace coordinator Bill Evans at (203) 216-2115 or send him an email at bevans2001@aol.com. If Bill is not available, contact Maureen Shanley at 203-788-0163 or maureenshanley@hotmail.com.

Join us each Spring and Fall for cargo shipment days.

There’s a special satisfaction in hands-on work performed for less-fortunate neighbors.

As you fill and stack boxes into the truck at Connecticut Quest for Peace’s (CT Quest) warehouse, you feel a special connection to the grateful men, women, and children who will soon open your hand packed boxes of humanitarian aid.

Roll up your sleeves and bring a friend!!! The sayings, "the more the merrier" and "many hands make light work" are words we live by ay our warehouse.

At CT Quest, packing days are fun and festive occasions and your help is appreciated. You’re welcome to come alone, bring a friend or group from your school, business, temple, mosque, church or community organization. Be sure to wear comfortable, old clothes and join us…

…at William Evans Painting Co. Warehouse, 394 Main St., Bridgeport, CT.

Mark your calendar to help us pack. Contact us to find out our next packing date.

Help pay costs for your shipment that you are helping to pack. Packing/freight/shipping charges come to $10,000 for each cargo container. Why not make a donation to cover all or part of the shipping costs?

Want to see who benefits from the donations you pack? Look at the beautiful children in our Photo Gallery.

CT Quest group projects build community at your school, workplace or house of worship.

For the last 20 years friends and community groups have supported Connecticut Quest for Peace’s humanitarian cargo aid program that delivers donated items to those in need.

A few simple & easy ideas for groups are:

1. Prevent the single biggest waste day at your local schools. Collect desk & locker leftovers at the end of the school year. This is environmentally sound and provides school supplies for poor children.

2. Give young children a hands-on lesson in compassion by assembling School Kits and Health Kits to be included with donated cargo.

3. Recycle old computers gathering dust in your school or corporation’s store room.

4. Build corporate spirit with a hands-on workday at our warehouse. Contact us to learn more about clean-up and organizational projects.

5. Raise consciousness in your teen group with a fundraiser to cover all or part of humanitarian cargo aid shipment costs.

6. Organize your temple, church or mosque group and help pack donations and load trucks at our warehouse in Bridgeport, CT, for twice-yearly shipments.

7. Create a fundraiser at your school, work or house of worship to pay shipment costs for humanitarian cargo aid. Each truckload costs $10,000. Make a secure online donation of any amount.

Customize a project that’s right for your family or group

You know best how to utilize your community’s resources and talents. Please feel free to brainstorm a project to support any of our community-based initiatives. Contact us with your ideas or to arrange for a CT Quest guest speaker to visit your community.

Exactly how do my old things help needy families?

Nicaragua is the second poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Over 78% of all Nicaraguans live on less than $2 a day and 30% of the population earns less than $1 a day. In Paraguay it is a bit better because the average wage is just under $2 per hour. In Appalachia, in our own country, low wages & high unemployment are the issues. Locally we assist recent immigrants to the USA. In all these locations people struggle just to stay alive.

Items useless to you may be priceless to needy people in Nicaragua’s inner city barrios or a remote countryside. To learn more about our most critical needs, please take a look at our list of most-wanted donations.

Here’s how our humanitarian cargo aid program works:

• You clean house and bring your items to the CT Quest warehouse, Bill's home garage—or arrange for us to pick up bulky items.

• Donations are packed into boxes and are then loaded into cargo containers by you and other local volunteers. Please find out how you can help us pack.

• Your donations then travel overland and/or by sea to their destination.

• Your donated goods are unpacked by our grassroots community-based partners.

• Items that cannot be used are sold at reasonable prices in tag/yard sales. Proceeds are reinvested into CT Quest-funded programs that help to improve the community at large.