WINDHAM – If there’s one lesson Windham police would like folks to learn from what transpired at the Goodwill store in North Windham on Tuesday afternoon, it’s that hand grenades probably don’t make appropriate donations.

Windham police and fire responded to the second-hand store adjacent to the post office in North Windham Shopping Center at 1:37 p.m. on Tuesday. In retrieving clothes and other donations from a bin at the rear of the store, a sales associate noticed two items that looked like hand grenades. Without touching them, the sales associate notified her boss and then called 911.

When police arrived, they quickly determined the hand grenades weren’t fakes, though they weren’t dangerous, said Lt. David DeGruchy, who has received training in identifying such devices.

“They were practice grenades used in training. I’m not sure if they are American, Russian or Canadian,” DeGruchy said.

There were two grenades, according to DeGruchy, one that resembled a pineapple and another the size and shape of a tennis ball. Neither had a pin. Instead, each had a reuseable mechanism that “blows out a little bit of debris” when activated.

“The trainer, when he was describing these, demonstrated it by letting it go off in his hand,” DeGruchy said. “Mind you, the discharge is no big deal but still you wouldn’t want it going off in your face or anything. Fortunately, these had already been expended.”

Because police didn’t know what they were dealing with at first, all customers and employees were evacuated while police searched the store with a K-9 unit for other bombs. DeGruchy said they were in the process of clearing out neighboring establishments “in case we had something real,” but soon gauged the grenades were not dangerous.

While Goodwill receives a slew of donations, including books, clothes and household goods, the store chain has never received hand grenades before.

“We do get random donations, but not like this,” said Michelle Smith, communications manager for Goodwill Industries of Northern New England. “This was left in the donation box and there’s no way to track it.”

Whether the perpetrator had a malicious intent is unclear, but DeGruchy also said whoever made the grenade donation probably did so unknowingly because the grenades were in with a “pile of other stuff” donated at the same time.

“It’s looks like they were cleaning the house out,” he said.

DeGruchy also said Officer Ernie MacVane has made a call to a possible suspect to let the person know, “if you guys did this, just be careful what you donate next time.”