This year’s Riverview Community Centre garage sale brought together neighbours to raise over $4500 for the centre.
All winter, the leftover items from last year’s garage sale waited in the lobby, and with hopes of originally holding the sale in the spring, donations were pouring in since March. Now, with the sale finally over, the community centre is looking tidy for the first time in over a year.
The change rooms were packed into a five-foot-high, impenetrable mass of donations. After the volunteers unpacked everything the day before the sale, the boxes contents filled the change rooms, lobby, and the entire hall.
Between a super busy Friday, and a slightly less busy Saturday, future sales will likely return to just one Saturday in the spring.
By Wednesday, all the donations will have been distributed to over half a dozen charities.
- Habits for Humanity ReStore: hardware, building material, and some furniture
- KidsSport Manitoba: sporting goods
- Free little libraries: books
- Share The Magic Book Program: kids books sent mostly to remote northern Manitoba communities
- Siloam Mission: coffee cups and jewelry
- The Salvation Army: picking up the rest
- A handful of refugee women from Winnipeg Central Park Women’s Resource Centre came after the sale and took whatever they liked.
Outside the club, Jean Altemeyer sold plants for Grands ’n’ More and raised $74.
Last year, public health orders kept the garage sale to a strict limit of eight customers at a time. This year there were no issues with the limit, but visitors did need to wear a mask, show their vaccine card, and sign in. Kathy Larson, one of the event organizers, says that even with the sign-in process everything went smoothly, and no one was left waiting for more than a few minutes.
Last year customers lined up outside in the cold for hours waiting to get in, but this year there was warm weather and almost no wait.
Looking back on the sign-in sheets, Kathy says over 400 customers came through this year’s sale.
Kathy says she loved to see customers loving the deals, “take 50 cents off something, they think you gave them the moon.” She says the 17 or so volunteers were fantastic and that she’s so lucky to have such great friends.
Steve Lennon, another garage sale organizer, says that for many people the sale is a feel-good event that gives them the opportunity to run into neighbours they haven’t seen in a long time. Customers were able to see old friends and new acquaintances while making connections. Steve feels those community connections are what keep and make Riverview strong.
We’d like to give a special thank you to our organizers Kathy Larson, Cathy Land, Steve Lennon, all the other volunteers, donors, and everyone who came out and participated. This sale was a success because of you.
We can’t wait to see you all again next year.