Labor of love: Why a worker at the Aptos Goodwill greets donors with costumes, jokes and puns

Daniel Ambrose has been the frontman at the Aptos Goodwill Central Coast donation center for the past seven years. Decked out in costume year-round, his donors don’t just drop items off, they leave with a personalized joke.

“Do you know why there’s no water in heaven this time of year?” Ambrose asked a donor in the parking lot at 9043 Soquel Dr.

“Why?” asked Brian Laschkewitsch as he unloaded a trunk of donations.

“No well,” Ambrose said with a smile. Get it? Noel.

“I’m not really doing it for me. I’m doing it for them. I would like to make sure that everyone that comes to Goodwill leaves with a smile,” said Ambrose, who’s known to all by his last name.

He estimates he has more than 100 costumes and 300 jokes up his sleeve. He said he makes an extra effort on Christmas and Halloween. To mark his final Christmas at Goodwill, he dressed as St. Nicholas, complete with a miter hat and crozier staff.

“I’m just a ham. No, it’s not every holiday. It’s every day. I didn’t want to disappoint my donors. They expect me to be in elaborate, outlandish things,” Ambrose said. “They could come in grumpy, but they leave chuckling over one of my silly dad jokes.”

With a white beard and a sturdy frame, the 69-year-old looks the part, even without red-and-green garb.

“I love this guy,” Laschkewitsch said. “He’s one of the reasons I like to come here all the time to deliver things because he’s always got the latest jokes and we all need to laugh these days. I really appreciate what he brings to Goodwill and my day, personally.”

Ambrose said the Goodwill in Aptos gets at least 100 donors a day.

“Donors are the backbone of Goodwill and Aptos just shines with great people, generous people. And people come from other areas and drop off here at this location because they’re ready for a joke,” Ambrose said.

“Every holiday I can’t wait to see what he’s going to be up to. What new surprise he’ll have for us,” donor Mary Bannister said.

Ambrose joined Goodwill after retiring from working for the City of Santa Cruz as a recycler and a garbage technician for 36 years. City jobs don’t pay into Social Security, so he works for Goodwill to accrue Social Security credits.

“I worked as a recycler so seeing all this stuff getting a second and third chance, it gladdens my heart,” he said.

He said a mission trip he took after high school inspired him to give back later in life. On that trip, he walked from San Diego to Sonoma over the course of two months with his pet donkey, soliciting funds for an organization that’s now called Hope Services and which helps people with developmental disabilities. It was a way to give back to the owners, who housed his animals on their land at no charge. He said the experience was covered in People magazine.

“I’m still feeling the glow of the generosity of people,” Ambrose said. “That’s how I feel about the milk of human kindness from that mission trip.”

He interrupts himself to tell a joke.

“Do you know what you call a bunch of sleepwalking nuns?” he asked. “Roaming Catholics. I can’t not tell a joke. It just bubbles out.”

Donors see his colorful, kooky outfits and take the jokes in stride.

“I like to keep it light. A lot of times they’re bringing in things from somebody who just passed. So, I try to keep everything upbeat. You just don’t know what’s happening in the donors’ lives,” he said.

Ambrose plans to retire in June, when he turns 70.

But until then, he said, “As long as I’m here, they’re going to get a joke whether they want it or not.”

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