This past Saturday, we hopped on our beaten old Trek bike and peddled the 10 or so miles over to West Seattle, for West Seattle Garage Sale Day. We didn’t buy anything (except a half-dozen delicious, backyard chicken eggs), but considered it a day very well spent.
See, we just love garage sales (or “tag sales”, as we called ’em Back East), which is why it galls us that Phinney / Greenwood has their Community Garage Sale Day, West Seattle has theirs, Capitol Hill has theirs, and what have we got? Bubkes!
Until now! We heard from Kelli, a parent at the John Stanford School, that a community garage sale, benefiting the school, is in the works:
This year, unlike the past few, we have decided to take a different approach to our annual Rummage Sale. We would like to get people inside and outside the community to move around the neighborhood enjoying the fresh air and the spirit of Wallingford.
The plan is to have several families host a yard sale with their own contributions and those of neighboring households. All proceeds will go to JSIS. The date has been set for May 30 from 9-2. There will also be a few lemonade stands with beverages, simple cakes and cookies sold by JSIS 5th Graders.
At this point I don’t have any more specific information. We have a handful of locations secured and are still working on the ‘tour’ aspect of the yard sale. We think it will start at a specific location and shoppers will then be encouraged to take a map and walk/drive around the community looking for other treasures.
As neighbors to the JSIS, we’ve held our garage sale on their rummage sale day in the past, and always pass along a kickback. We hope that something similar, but Wallingford-wide can grow around this. Sure, have a few JSIS-specific garage sales, but let’s get everyone in Wallingford who is thinking of have a garage sale anytime this spring choose May 30th (or whenever the JSIS one materializes). Let’s build a map (see West Seattle’s for an example of awesomeness)! Let’s get folks from Shoreline, Renton and Spokane to come over for it (OK, at least from Spokane Street)!
We’ve enlisted the help of our friend JLo of Doublethought Media, and he’s promised to at least take a swing at building a Google Map generator (although we’re on ridiculously short timeframe, so we won’t grudge him if we have to build something by hand this time around).
If you’re interested in getting involved in the JSIS side of things, drop us a line and we’ll put you in touch with Kelli. If you think you’d hold a garage sale on May 30th, drop a note in the comments section.
My apartment building was part of the West Seattle community sale on Saturday and it was fantastic! So much so that I want to do it again! I looked up a Wallingford community sale that I could have with my boyfriend, who lives just off 45th. I would love to be involved somehow, I would even volunteer to go door to door encouraging others to be involved.