Garage Sales Unite

My neighbourhood is in an older area where there is a mix of long term residents and more recently moved in people, like us. I decided to combine my love of garage sales and community together and started to plan a neighbourhood garage sale. There were wonderful unexpected outcomes and I can only imagine that next year will be bigger and better.

What I love about ideas is that when you share them, you never know how those ideas will turn out. I believed I had to do my "research" first to find out if a neighbourhood garage sale had ever happened. As it turned out, there hadn't been one, but that very weekend my neighbour and her friends were planning one. Some discussions happened amongst that group and it was decided to set a later date and invite the neighbours to join in this venture.

Over a cup of tea we decided what the invitation should say and came up with key points to share. One of the important things we thought to have on the invitation was the "why". Four points of "why" included 1) your cast offs could be some one's treasure, 2) meet your neighbours, 3) encourage recycling, and 4) just to have fun! Flyers were dropped off in each mail box of the neighbourhood and then we waited.

The invitation worked! There were about 14 neighbours who participated, and quite a few neighbours called to say they were away but would participate next time. Someone put signs up while another person put balloons out. One woman said she didn't want to have a garage sale, but would host a barbeque for those who had a garage sale. What a gem!

The end of the garage sale day came and we all headed over to our neighbour's with potluck contributions. Food, fun, and conversations were held with babes to seniors.

This neighbourhood garage sale was a success because it met the outcomes of meeting neighbours, recycling, having fun, and building relationships. When I reflect on the process what really happened was a community development approach to an event. Invitations to participate with a smaller group, talking about strengths, some informal research, setting priorities on how to best implement the event, and then broadening the invitation to others.

I only made $25 at my garage sale that day, but the relationships I started to build are priceless.