In January 2019 we were desperately praying for Jesus to help us with two major problems. One, we needed money to repair our vans so we could continue with our clothing collections. Two, we had a literal mountain of large items that we couldn’t sell at our Tanilba Bay Op Shop (our only op shop at the time) and we couldn’t send overseas as they were too big to pack nicely. We didn’t want to send good things to landfill.
As she was praying one day God gave Liz the answer – have a Garage Sale to raise money for van repairs AND to move along large items. Debbie presented this to the Board who said “If you can find 5 volunteers to help we’ll go for it!” Debbie found more than 5 willing helpers.
Our next big hurdle was figuring out what prices to put on each item. None of our volunteers were retail people so we had no idea and we really wanted the items to go at a low price to bless the customers as well as us. Win win win.
God gave the answer to Lesley. “Price everything at $1 each!”
So we did. For that first year we sold everything for $1. Some people bought items worth $100 or more for only a dollar! When we had a dramatic price rise to $2 an item the following year, our loyal customers said “About time you increased the prices!”
Just six weeks after God gave Liz the idea we had our first Garage Sale! It was so successful that we had a few more before deciding to hold one the first Saturday of every month.
In 2020 we had to stop our Garage Sales due to the Covid 19 Lockdown. We were probably the first community event back up and running after Lockdown because we had come to learn that our Garage Sales were not just a place to find good things at low prices, but they are also a community meeting place where locals can have a chat with a friendly volunteer. It was an unexpected blessing to become friends with our community in this way.
