Garage Sales and Community: Pay It Forward, Part II

This past weekend we had a huge garage sale because we are moving in TWO weeks! If you want the scoop on the sale, you can read yesterday’s post, here.

Today’s post is about what happens after a sale like this. My motto with garage sales has always been that once it goes out, it doesn’t come back in (to the house). I mean we already decided to get rid of the item, why bring it back into the house? We adhered to this with very few exceptions and those exceptions were made for very small items (jewelry, a CD or two, and some Pez dispensers).

So what do you do with the items that are left, the items nobody wanted? Our plan was to donate to Salvation Army, Habitat for Humanity’s Restore, and Good Will. (This is not a debate about which of those charities are legit or worthwhile – it’s just what we have available here as far as placed to make donations of household goods). We’ve also put some things on the street for FREE, but part of our road closed yesterday for construction work, so that’s not really a viable option.

But, our plans changed. On the first day of the sale, a woman and her husband who own a local resale store stopped by. They both know my husband because he’s made donations to their store before. They both bought things at our sale. But, then a deal was struck. They would come back on Monday (yesterday) and pick from whatever was left for their store. They would haul it away, in other words. And, at 7:50 a.m. yesterday, they did!

Today, they were back and took suitcases that never made it out to the sale. They are also going to take two twin beds/mattresses that we have from our sons who moved out in the last two years.

All of our unwanted items are going to the local resale store first. This is the reason why: they not only have a local business but are providing a service for our community. They also give back (I wrote about this yesterday, so if you didn’t read that post, I’d read it by clicking the link in the first paragraph of this post).

This resale store is only a few years old. But, they donate a percentage of their sales to the local Boys’ and Girls’ Club, also newly built in our town several years ago. They donated a couple thousand dollars last year and just gave them another check. As far as I see it, it’s a win-win situation. We clean out, we donate, a local business profits, and a local community organization benefits.

This is what healthy communities do.

And, this is part of the reason I want to come back here when we are ready to build.

Today is Slice of Life Tuesday. Thank you to TwoWritingTeachers.org for creating such a supportive community of writers and encouraging our participation each week. I have posted to this group since February of 2017.