Donations to the Quincy Salvation Army's thrift store are down.

Major Alan Wurtz believes one of the reasons is big red boxes that are popping up around town.

Major Wurtz told KHQA he has no problem with competition, but feels the owners of the red boxes are in it for the wrong reasons.

This is just one of several collection bins for the company U'SAgain. Right on the front, it advertises for clothing and shoes.

"Since these boxes have materialized in town, I've had people thinking they were Salvation Army boxes. And that's why they donate. Those are not Salvation Army property, and they are owned by a group outside the Army that is a for-profit organization," says Major Alan Wurtz.

Here's the way the U'SAgain company works. You drop off your clothing and shoes into a drop off bin. Once a week, the contents of the bin are picked up and taken to St. Louis. Then U'SAgain sells the clothes by the pound and ships them to third world countries. The Quincy Salvation Army does something similar. For clothes that won't or don't sell in the Thrift Store, they are sold to an outfit in Canada, again by the pound. The clothes are then shipped to third world countries. The money supports the local emergency shelter.

"To me, this is money that's going outside the community. They help a for-profit company. It makes you feel good that you're doing a good thing, but in these economic times, it's so important that we support our local community," says Wurtz.

"We do reinvest significant amounts in the community. We donate to many worthy charities," says Mattias Wallander, the CEO of U'SAgain.

The CEO of U'SAgain tells me in the last ten years, his company has donated a million dollars to schools, churches, hospitals, and food banks. The number one goal of the company is to keep stuff out of landfills.

"We're not trying to collect what people are giving to their local Salvation Army. I don't think we can because there are people who support specific charities."

Mattias Wallander says his company tries to make it convenient for people to donate clothes if they don't happen to support a specific charity. That's why the boxes can be found all around town. Wallander says this time of year is slow for his company, too, because people aren't out and about that much. He says once spring cleaning season rolls around, donations will pick up.

We also contacted some other thrift stores in the area.

Goodwill in Hannibal told us donations there are steady.

The Crossing Thrift Store in Quincy says donations are down there too, but it's mostly due to the weather.

However, the manager says he doesn't like the red collection bins either because his store and the Salvation Army store do what they do out of necessity, not to turn a profit.

More on U'SAgain can be found at http://www.usagain2.com/