LOS ANGELES — Once music fans file out of the Empire Polo Grounds in Indio at the end of the Stagecoach and Coachella festivals, the work begins for charitable organizations who turn the discarded clutter — more than 24 tons of it strewn throughout the 642-acre property — into a benefit for the local needy.

Among the things left behind on the festival grounds are clothing, camping gear, dry foods and other goods that local community organizations pick up by the truckload to help benefit the low-income and unhoused people they serve.

Many out-of-town festival attendees leave behind folding tables or camping chairs because they fly into Southern California and purchase what they need for the weekend but can't carry the items onto a plane when they leave, said Lupe Torres-Hilario, director of operations at the Galilee Center, a nonprofit that fulfills food, clothing and basic needs for local disadvantaged children, families and farmworkers in the East Coachella Valley.

The Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival ran April 12-14 and April 19-21. The Stagecoach Country Music Festival ran April 26-28.

For the last five years, the Galilee Center has sent two trucks to the Stagecoach festival and four trucks to the Coachella festival the day after the festivities end. Volunteers and Galilee Center staff split up among the campsites to find left-behind items or ask attendees who are packing up their campsites whether they have anything to donate.

"When they do (want to donate) they sometimes hand us a canopy still open and we'll close it, pack it up and put it in our truck," Torres-Hilario said.

The festivals attract different types of fans: Coachella attendees rely primarily on tent camping and car camping while Stagecoach fans often arrive in RVs, she said. There are fewer discarded items after Stagecoach because people pack up their RVs and leave, Torres-Hilario said.

Galilee Center also often gets calls from event sponsors who want to donate tables, chairs and throw rugs.

This year, the center gathered 48,480 pounds of donations from Coachella. The total for items collected after Stagecoach hasn't been calculated yet.

Last year, Goldenvoice, the music festival promoter that puts on Coachella and Stagecoach, donated a total of 34.6 tons of materials from Coachella and Stagecoach.

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