How Does Video Game Donation Pickup Work in Chicago?

Give My Books Network sends a Local Pick-Up Partner to your Chicago address to collect donated games and media at no cost. A Local Pick-Up Partner is the locally owned family business that does the collecting, not a national carrier.

There is a bin under the television in a lot of Chicago apartments. Cartridges, discs in the wrong cases, three controllers and one cord that still works. Nobody has opened it since the last move.

That bin is worth a pickup.

What Video Game Items Are Accepted in Chicago?

Give My Books Network accepts console games across every generation, plus the hardware and accessories that came with them. Cartridge-era systems, disc-era systems, handhelds, and whatever came home last December all belong in the box.

• Games: cartridges, discs and handheld titles, boxed or loose
• Consoles, docks and power supplies
• Controllers, memory cards and charging cables
• Peripherals: light guns, dance mats, steering wheels, the plastic guitar in the hall closet
• Strategy guides, because those are books and this is a book donation pickup service first

If it plugged into a TV in a Bridgeport bungalow at some point, a partner will take a look at it.

Do Broken Consoles and Scratched Discs Still Count?

Broken consoles and scratched discs are still worth including in a Chicago pickup: a console that will not power on is full of parts a repair-minded person will use, and a scratched disc usually reads fine.

Not everything survives, and pretending otherwise helps nobody. A disc with a deep gouge across the data side is finished. A controller with a snapped stick housing is finished. A console that sat in a damp Avondale basement through two Chicago winters may never boot again.

Here is the part people get backwards. Loose cartridges with no box still have players waiting for them. Sports titles from a decade ago still move. Pack it and let your partner make the call later.

Packing Games for a Chicago Pickup Day

Pack the boxes yourself, in advance. Your Local Pick-Up Partner does not bring boxes, so use what you already have: a liquor store box, a copy paper box, a sturdy tote bag.

Games are heavier than they look, and a copy paper box full of cased discs gets awkward fast. If a box feels too heavy, split it into two smaller ones. Loose cartridges can ride in a paper bag inside the box so they are not sliding around. Tape the top.

Set everything out starting at 8 AM. Pick a dry spot: under the back porch, inside the gangway, on the covered landing. Cardboard on an open stoop during a February wet snow is a losing bet, and the January wind off Lake Michigan will find any loose flap you leave it.

Where Do Donated Games Go After a Chicago Pickup?

Local Pick-Up Partners sort every Chicago collection offsite, never on your steps. Many items are redistributed through the Give ME Books program to readers, schools, after-school tutoring programs, community centers, libraries and nonprofits that ask for them.

A shelf of games in a field house does real work on a cold Saturday. Some titles are resold by the partner, which is how the free pickup stays free. Items that cannot be reused may eventually be recycled as a last resort. For the wider context on how donated materials are evaluated before they are placed, the American Library Association's guide to book donation programs covers the thinking clearly.

Why a Crate of Games Is Not a Small Thing

Every Give My Books Network pickup ends with a 3-click review, and public ratings keep partners honest. The best of them earn a Top Giver badge. Eighteen years in, past 200,000 books redistributed, that accountability is why the model holds together.

Out along Cicero Avenue we hear the same line: "It is only old games, is it even worth calling?" Nine times out of ten, yes. A crate of games out of an Avondale two-flat is a rainy-day afternoon for a kid who did not have one.

Pack the bin, set it out, schedule the pickup, done.