Iowa City and local nonprofits teamed up to host their annual Donation Drive-Thru event, aiming to keep useful items out of the landfill during peak lease turnover season and redistribute them to the community.
The event, first held in 2022, has seen nothing but success in its first four years. The city collected over 8,000 pounds of useful material in 2022, over 16,000 in 2023, and over 10,000 in 2024.

While exact numbers have not yet been reported for the 2025 event, Jane Welch, Iowa City recycling coordinator, said the event was successful.

“In general, thousands of pounds of materials are diverted from the landfill every year — anything from batteries being recycled to furniture being reused by our local nonprofit partners,” she said.

Although the Donation Drive-Thru has been an official event for the city since 2022, its roots go back much further, to before the COVID-19 pandemic, when the city would regularly host Rummage the Ramp.

In 2020, all public programming paused, and in 2021, the city took the opportunity to determine if the Rummage the Ramp program was the best option. Throughout the summer, they held multiple pop-up donation drop events from May to July at different locations in East, West, North, South, and Central Iowa City.

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After running the pop-up events, the city found they received the most donations at their Central Iowa City location at the end of July, due to a high number of people ending leases and moving elsewhere.

Welch said the city is lucky to be working with an amazing group of nonprofits for the event.

“The thing that I love most about Donation Drive-Through is that we are able to offer services that divert materials from the landfill, but then they are able to go to these amazing nonprofit partners and be immediately put to good use in our community,” she said.

Antelope Lending Library, a local nonprofit and a fee-free bookmobile, received all book donations from the event in 2024 and 2025. Director Cassandra Elton said the event is an efficient way for the nonprofit to receive a lot of donations all at once, rather than coordinating with individuals for a smaller donation.

“Donations like this are really incredible because a lot of these are newer titles,” she said. “The chances of us receiving titles we’ve been looking for, or titles we have been looking for, goes up.”

If books are not put into the Antelope Lending Library’s circulating collection, they are able to use them for their monthly book sales, the funding of which goes directly back to the nonprofit.

The organization has also recently started a new program to receive gently used car seats and donate them to families in need. Elton said they got nine car seat donations at the Donation Drive-Thru event — the largest number they have received from a single donation since the program started in January.

The car seat program originated because Elton noticed thrift stores, consignment stores, and other nonprofits in the area rarely accept car seats, causing a big gap in services.

“We have a huge wait list of people waiting for car seats, so this was really helpful,” Elton said. “We love that we are sharing resources that already exist within our community.”

Ian Cawley, director of Houses into Homes, said his nonprofit received one and a half 19-foot truckloads full of good quality, useful household goods, mattresses, and furniture.

“Anytime we can get furniture and household items that we are then re-donating to our recipients is a great win for us,” he said.

House into Homes is always in need of twin mattresses, but they received eight from the Drive-Through Donation event alone, which Cawley said directly benefits a lot of children in Johnson County.

After delivering to 55 kids in Johnson County last year, 85% of children reported getting better sleep at night, 82% reported performing better in school, and 76% of parents said their relationship has improved with their children because of the deliveries.

“It’s a big thing to create better dynamics within the household and make the home a place that people want to live, which then makes those people who live there want to spend more time together,” Cawley said. “The impact is immense.”

Cawley said the organization is very appreciative of the city for holding the event, and of community members for being willing to donate instead of leaving items by the curb.

“We filled up a lot of trucks with donated stuff—not just Houses into Homes, but a lot of different organizations,” he said. “The community-wide impact between all of us is just huge.”