Good Morning-
Responding for my home church, rather than my employer (university)
Our church has been doing this for years. It's a one-day sale, with two days of prep. To keep things manageable:
-All donations come in the two days of prep. We have extended drop-off hours on Thursday, and then cut it off at 4 on Friday.
-Volunteers are set up at various stations. You have your intake area, pricing/sorting, and then various rooms to house donations by theme (kitchen/holiday/linens/wall art/jewelry/etc)
-No clothing is allowed. (Shoes seem to be the exception) Initially I thought this was a missed opportunity, but it would be extremely unwieldly to sort (and cleanliness factors would become an issue)
-On the day of the sale, 15 minutes before the last hour, everyone must vacate(they can come back in), and then we do a cart/bag sale. $15 for cart, $5 for a garbage bag. (People pay for those up front, and then come and fill them) The antique table is shut down during this time (and everything put away), but everything else is fair game. You would not believe what people will take when it's being thrown into a cart with other stuff. It massively cuts down on leftover inventory.
-Anything that is not sold goes immediately to resale shops. That means volunteers are packing everything up (save boxes for this-it's easy to "let them go" to customers shopping and then not have anything to pack up) I assume that arrangements are made with these resale shops that they will be getting deliveries on that date at a later hour (6 or 7 pm), but we have several church members with trucks and enclosed trailers that come and haul everything over.
-Volunteers sign up to come in and clean up the church afterwards (the sale volunteers tend to do all three days, and they are three long days, so having a fresh crew to come in and vacuum, put tables away, restore Sunday school classroom setups, etc is very much appreciated.)
Our community really seems to enjoy the sale, and funds are distributed to local groups (based on the vote of the volunteers who run it). Ours has gotten to be a huge event (largest rummage in the county), but it runs very smoothly from my perspective as a new volunteer this year.
SARAH GARTMAN, MBA
Director of Human Resources
Human Resources Department
sarah.gartman@cuw.edu
p: 262-243-4581 I f: 262-243-3414
CUW S104
Concordia University Wisconsin Concordia University Ann Arbor
12800 North Lake Shore Drive 4090 Geddes Road
Mequon, WI 53097 Ann Arbor, MI 48105
www.cuw.edu www.cuaa.edu
A Lutheran higher education community committed to helping students develop in mind, body, and spirit for service to Christ in the Church and the world
This e-mail is intended solely for the person or entity to which it is addressed and may contain confidential and/or privileged information. Any review, dissemination, copying, printing, or other use of this e-mail by a person or entities other than the addressee is prohibited. If you have received this e-mail in error, please contact the sender immediately and delete the material from your computer. If the disclaimer can't be applied, attach the message to a new disclaimer message.