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THE
BIG GARAGE SALE 2009
By Babette and Art Markey
Another year gone and it’s almost
time for the May 2009 Garage Sale! For the past few years, we have had
numerous “off-season” donations that have filled up a storage shed and part
of an Auxiliary member’s (Art & Babette’s) garage. We have a pretty nice
amount of donations already in storage and the first drop off weekend was
brisk but we still need lots of stuff to make this sale our usual success.
We still do not have a car to auction this year and hope that someone in the
community can come to our rescue before the sale!
Remember,
this is the Fire Department Auxiliary’s largest single fund raiser for its
work in support of our BMFPD volunteers. To give you an idea of how valuable
this is to the Fire Department and the community, the 2008 sale provided the
funds to pay to have all the necessary fire hose replaced with compatible
connection hardware so all the hose is now interchangeable between all the
trucks.
As usual, we need 3 things:
Donations, Volunteers, and Shoppers.
1. Lots of donations, both
large and small.
We will need lots more donations to
have a successful sale. Here are our guidelines:
What makes a good donation:
things that are in good usable condition, clean and in working order.
What won’t we take: building materials, chemicals, pre-Pentium II
computers or incomplete systems (stand-alone monitors, printers, etc.),
guns, large appliances, mattresses, custom window coverings. Since we must
be able to sell what we get, we reserve the right to decline any donations.
What types of items are good: most anything that is not listed in the
‘won’t take’ list. Here are some ideas: antiques, collectibles, furniture,
jewelry, toys, books, electronics, lamps, housewares, CDs, countertop
appliances, linens, sporting goods, artwork, knickknacks, clothing, etc.
A
car would be a super donation. If anyone wants to donate a running,
“registerable” car, please call us. That really gives our bottom line a big
boost! Because of recent IRS rules changes, we will basically act as the
“broker” in selling any vehicle. We will have the buyer make their check out
to you and have you in turn write a check to the Auxiliary for the amount of
the sale price. A little extra work but much simpler than dealing with the
new IRS rules!!!!!!!!!
Of course all your donations are
tax deductible and we will provide a receipt. You have to assign the value.
2.
Lots of volunteers.
Many volunteers are needed to make
the sale successful. If you have previously worked at our garage sales, we
will be calling you to enlist your help again this year. If you have not
volunteered before but would like to help out, please call us at
303-440-6132. We need people to accept donations, haul our current stash out
of storage, set up the rooms, price, move items out to the ‘sales floor’
before opening, sell, and clean up after closing. We definitely need some
folks who are skilled at lifting and hauling. We are a fun group to work
with, so come out and join us!
As you may recall from our
post-Garage-Sale-2008 article, in addition to volunteers working shifts
before and during the sale, the Auxiliary is in need of people from the
community at large who are willing to step up and agree to ‘own’ a piece of
the work… i.e. be responsible to see that it gets done and done on time.
There are a lot of different pieces that we can carve out, with varying time
requirements, from a few hours on up. Please consider becoming a part of the
team that runs the garage sale. We DO need your help!
3. Lots of enthusiastic
shoppers with wallets full of spending money (sorry, no credit cards).
No matter how much great stuff is
donated, without a lot of shoppers we would have a building full of stuff,
no place to go with it, and a lot of unhappy volunteers. Since what one
person can no longer use can become another person’s treasure, you need to
come shopping to see what treasures you can find to buy and to support our
firefighters. We always have an amazing assortment of goodies. This is one
of the best sales in the area, so spread the word amongst your friends and
acquaintances. We will have business cards and flyers available for
distribution in advance of the sale. If you would like some of those, (or if
you would like to be in charge of publicity for the sale) please let us
know.
Here’s the schedule. Please mark
the dates on your calendar.
Collecting donations at the Pine
Brook Firehouse:
Saturday May 2 10 AM – 2 PM
Sunday May 3 10 AM – 2 PM
Saturday May 9 10 AM – 2 PM
Sunday May 10 10 AM – 2 PM
The
Big Sale:
Friday May 15 9 AM – 4 PM
Saturday May 16 9 AM – 4 PM
Sunday May 17 noon – 4 PM
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