One might have noticed the bright blue clothes drop-off boxes appearing around Covington County the last several weeks.

Emblazoned with the American Family Foundation logo, the boxes are used to collect unwanted clothing and household items. The donations are then sold at wholesale to thrift store operations, with 98.5 percent of the proceeds donated back to 40 different Christian family ministries such as Sav-A-Life and the Salvation Army, said Dale Bolling, an AFF representative from Dothan.

“These boxes aren’t there to compete with other organizations that collect items,” Bolling sale. “The group realized years ago that if they made it more convenient, people tend to donate more, like when other places are closed or when the person has the time.”

Bolling said there are eight boxes in Andalusia, five in Opp and one in Sanford.

“The big thing is that we want to stress is that there are other people who do this, but we do it efficiently,” Bolling said. “By putting boxes around, it’s not to take away from those who normally take donations. We’re trying to catch the people who wouldn’t normally donate.

“For example, last week, I delivered box, and a woman sees the side of box that says we accept clothes and shoes,” he said. “She said, ‘Oh my goodness, I just put a bunch of clothes in dumpster.’ That’s the people we’re tying to catch.”

AFF is headquartered in Birmingham and is a nonprofit established in 1994 exclusively for charitable, religious, educational and literary purposes, including making distributions to other non-profit organizations.