Coast Inn of the North to make massive mattress donation to local shelters

The Coast Inn of the North has been dealing with a dilemma for years: what to do with nearly 150 mattresses when they age out of hotel use.

This year, General Manager David McQuinn says they’ve found a novel and helpful solution.

“Normally, we struggle to figure out what to do with the mattresses that we’re discarding. Being downtown and seeing the need, we just got together with a couple of city councillors and came up with the idea that we could donate them.”

According to McQuinn, the Coast Inn cycles through its mattresses every 10 years or so. He says Councillors Krause and Scott helped coordinate with local organizations to ensure that most of this cycle’s mattresses will go to shelters instead of the dump.

McQuinn says the most difficult part of the initiative was figuring out how to get the mattresses where they need to go.

“It’s a significant endeavour to deal with 10 mattresses let alone 100 or 150. Right now, I think that they’re probably going to take all the double rooms and maybe some queen rooms.”

That adds up to a donation of somewhere between 50 and 100 mattresses.

The swap will take place in late April, with the used mattresses going to AWAC’s storage facility before being distributed to local shelters.

But it’s not just mattresses that the hotel donates.

“When our towels and our sheets reach the point of discard for us, they also go to homeless shelters. We also have the mini shampoos and lotions. When they are half-used we send them over to different organizations.”

McQuinn says the Coast is just doing its part as a member of the Prince George community.

“We want to do what we need to do to help our community address individuals in need and help them to better their life. We hope that others will jump on board with the initiative because every hotel and motel in our community has to do the same thing.”

McQuinn says that if every hotel and motel in Prince George donated its used toiletries, mattresses and linens, local shelters would never be in need.