Friday, May 31, 2013

We're as ready as we'll ever be!

Setting up for the sale
For six months, a small team of a half-dozen volunteers have been sorting, pricing, boxing and storing garage sale items all donated by an incredibly generous community.  On Thursday, a larger team of volunteers helped load up flat decks and trucks, move everything to the exhibition grounds, unload it all, and sort it into its respective areas.  Today, Friday, even more volunteers (including the half dozen of the past six months and most of the ones from Thursday) took everything out of the boxes and arranged everything attractively on about 160 (I think) tables and 16,000 square feet of floor space.  Now that's a garage sale!  

So, we're ready for you.  As ready as we'll ever be.  And I hope we'll see you at Mellor Hall, Cowichan Exhibition Grounds (Hwy 1 at Mays Rd, just north of Duncan on Vancouver Island), Saturday and Sunday (June 1 and 2) from 8:30 AM - 3:00 PM.  It's worth the trip from Victoria or Nanaimo or Campbell River. It's even worth a trip from the mainland!  

We have tools and sports and gardening stuff (including hanging baskets and containers of annuals!), 

One small section of the garden area -
before all of the plants had arrived!

we have electronics and clothes and linens and shoes and purses and jewellery for all budgets! We have an amazing array of kids stuff as well as puzzles and games for all ages.  

I need a kid to buy for!

We have a kitchen department that rivals the big box stores!  We have items for pets - with dozens and dozens of leashes and collars (mostly new!) and coats and dishes, beds and crates and litter pans and aquariums,  and even a saddle, some halters and horse blankets! 

Something for everyone and his or her dog -
or cat or fish or ferret or guinea pig or horse. 


We have craft supplies and seasonal decor.   There's Pricer's Picks - the quirky, exotic, outrageous, classy, and sometimes funny items that took the fancy of one or more of the pricing team.  There's furniture - desks and couches and tables and a bunk bed, rugs and bookcases, enough to outfit your whole house.  

We'll even help you find accessories to accent your
SPCA-special living room suite!
There's art - from modern  little frames to massive ancient pieces.  There's books.  Did I mention there's books?  All sorted by genre.  There's all this and more - and when you get hungry, Bob will BBQ one of his famous burgers for you.

You're not going to find another garage sale like this anywhere.  There's only clean quality goods - no broken or dirty junk here! - and everything has a price sticker on it, most so unbelievably low that you won't need to dither about whether to buy it or not.  We accept cash or credit cards. 

Setting up - and there's more!

And every penny goes to the animals at the Cowichan and District SPCA, which, in my opinion, is the best branch of the SPCA in Canada.  

I hope to see you there.  I'll be the one with the camera in front of my face. 

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh how i wish i lived closer!
Vernon Bev

Brigid said...

It looks spectacular - hope it went really well!

Jean said...

An incredible day yesterday, with thousands of people buying thousands of dollars worth of goods - but there's still some great stuff left for today. And everything today is half price - we want it GONE! Once again, we are at the Cowichan Exhibition Grounds (Hwy 1 at Mays Rd, north of Duncan), from 8:30 to 3:00.

Anonymous said...

Wow, Jean, that garage sale looks fantastic! The work you and the other volunteers have done to organize and sell everything is incredible. I wasn't able to make it this year but am definitely going to come next year. Do you always have the sale on the first weekend in June?
Thank you for all your work for the SPCA!!!

Jean said...

The sale used to be the last weekend of May, but the last two years it has been held the first weekend in June. I'm guessing it will be the same next year - as soon as I know for sure, I'll post the info on the blog. :)