Hosting a Yard Sale
By Nancy Schuessler
The first thing you need? A good location and plenty of stuff.
“My house works well location-wise, and I don’t mind putting up with the piles of donations for a few weeks,” says Liz McGinness, who hosts an annual yard sale for Southwest Oasis Labrador Rescue (SOLR).
Why does she do it? To save dogs.
This year Liz helped organize two yard sales, both in November. The first was at St. Mark's United Methodist Church in Oro Valley, where SOLR joined several other rescue organizations in a community yard-sale event. The second was at Liz McGinnis' house. Together, the two events raised several thousand dollars for homeless and abandoned Labradors.
“We get some great items to sell every year,” says Liz. Donations start appearing weeks before the sale date, and her driveway fills up fast with piles of stuff – lamps, blankets, bikes, chairs, dishes -- anything you can imagine. "We never know what we will find during the sorting and pricing process, from dirty old socks to Tiffany wine glasses!"
She doesn't work alone. Several volunteers pitch in with set up, pricing, and the sale date itself, including Carol Lange, Karen Walsh, and Kathy Becket. Sometimes husbands turn up to help move stuff around. “We love when Leticia Reyna helps because she speaks Spanish and knows how to haggle."
Some items are too good to sell for a few dollars at a yard sale, so Liz pulls them and offers them on Facebook marketplace, Craigslist, or eBay. For example, this year Liz was contacted about an item she knew would sell online for good money – vintage spice jars. “I listed them on eBay and they sold for $860!”
Another year, a signed football and vintage Danish desk were donated. “We didn't know anything about the desk; it was worn and stained, and we looked over it quickly for signs of a maker but couldn't see anything." No one offered to buy it. Big furniture doesn’t always sell because most shoppers don’t have the means to move it.
“We considered donating the desk, but I felt it was worth selling." Liz put the desk on Facebook marketplace for $80. Within hours, people were offering triple the amount and wanting it right away. “It wasn't until we turned the desk upside down to load it into the buyer's SUV that I saw the maker’s mark underneath." It was a lesson learned.
Most items that don’t sell get packed up and donated to places like the Humane Society Thrift Shop. This year, a rescue down in Mexico wants to collect left-over items so they can do a sale to raise funds for dogs in Mexico.
“It’s a lot of work and very tiring,” says Liz. “Once we’ve finished, packed up all the leftover items and cleaned up, we all need a lie down.”
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