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15 Tips for a Successful Rummage Sale
Is your church, chapter or nonprofit organization planning to hold a garage sale to raise funds? The following 10 tips, straight from Pat Olson, co-founder and co-chairman of the annual Mega Sale at Prince of Peace Lutheran Church in Burnsville, Minnesota, can help you find success.
Olson’s tips come from her 15 years of experience in planning the sale at Prince of Peace. Last year’s event raised nearly $120,000 for ministry at Prince of Peace and across the world.
- Decide to make it a quality sale. When asking for donations, stress that all items must be clean and in good working condition. No stains, tears or missing pieces.
- Assemble a garage sale team. Find someone to coordinate each product area, such as clothing, household, children’s items, books, crafts, antiques, sporting goods and furniture. (Prince of Peace has more than 50 coordinators)
- Have each area coordinator keep a pricing folder. This serves as a guide for consistent pricing in each area. After the sale, note in the folder if prices were too low (items sold immediately) or if they were too high (too many items left over). This assists in pricing items next year. It also helps you determine items you do not want to collect for future sales; they may be difficult to sell and expensive to dispose of.
- Smell all donations. Reject any and all items that smell musty, smoky or like mothballs. Even one musty item can cause a whole room to smell musty, and customers may leave. If in doubt, ask a fellow volunteer for assistance.
- Price items reasonably. Check out garage sales in your area to compare. Mark all items in 50-cent increments. This saves a lot of time at the checkout. Also consider pricing items by category. For example, all paperback books are 50 cents; hardcover books are $1.
- Use preprinted labels or masking tape and a medium blue pen when pricing items. Dots work for most items, but will not stick to fabric.
- Advertise your sale. Spend the money; it’s worth it. If you don’t invite the pubic, it’s like throwing a party and not inviting anyone. You do all that work and no one comes. Some hints for advertising:
- Place classified ads in area newspapers.
- Hand out fliers to family, friends and co-workers.
- Use big, bold letters on all outdoor signs. Don’t use fancy printing. Signs should contain the name of the church (or location of the sale), day and time of sale, address and a big black arrow. Hint: If you use the days of the sale rather than the dates, the signs can be used again next year.
- Write down where you hang signs and remove all signs an hour before the end of the sale. Save for next year!
- Find a lot of friendly workers to help. Recommend ages 10 years or older for volunteers. For many customers, this will be the first time in your church. When they leave, you want it to have been a good experience--they got bargains and everyone had a good time. Hints for volunteers you’ll need:
- Friendly door and line hostesses who can greet shoppers and answer questions.
- Cashiers and baggers
- Someone at a table with information about the church.
- Ask other groups within your church to sponsor a package check, a food tent, bake sale or coffee shop. The package check allows shoppers to pay for items in individual rooms and check their packages while they continue to shop.
- Just before you open the sale each day, gather your volunteers together, either in one location or in the various rooms, and pray with them. Thank God for the volunteers, pray a blessing on all who enter the building that day, ask for patience and pray that Christ would be reflected in the actions of the volunteers. This can be a wonderful witness to people standing in line waiting for the sale to open.
- Have boxes or bags for shoppers to shop with. Have big signs on the walls with big arrows directing shoppers to other rooms. Watch for traffic flow.
- Have an express lane in larger rooms with multiple checkouts. The separate checkout should be for people with five items or less.
- Sell all items at half price on the last day and have a bag sale for last two hours. Charge $2 or $3 for a grocery bag full of items. Things will fly out the door, and it cuts down on leftovers.
- Arrange to have charitable organizations pick up leftovers an hour after the sale is over.
- Keep a yearly notebook with a copy of everything you’ve done—every piece of publicity, everything you’ve told coordinators. A week after the sale, have a coordinator thank-you get-together where you discuss recommendation for the next sale, frustrations, potential improvements and items not to collect next year. Collect the coordinator folders.
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Bethania Kids
David Granner has never been one to sugarcoat his words when he talks about the needs of children and their families in India. As the co-founder and president of Bethania Kids—a Christian mission that provides for the physical and spiritual needs of poor, abandoned and disabled children in India—Granner became even more vocal after a tsunami ravaged South Asia last December.
“There is nothing easy about this, nothing beautiful about what’s going on,” says Granner, a senior financial consultant with Thrivent Financial in Ann Arbor, Michigan. “Hundreds of children have lost both of their parents, but there’s an even more tremendous amount of people that have been left destitute. They’ve lost their way to provide for their families, and they need our help.”
Bethania began in 1987 when a small group of Christians in India and America were moved with compassion to reach out with God’s love to a few destitute and orphaned children. Today, Bethania serves about 600 children in three orphanages, six care centers and two centers for disabled children in India.
“This is as many children as Bethania has the resources to take care of,” Granner says.
However, the organization committed to take in 130 of the 800 children left fully orphaned in the region following the tsunami, Granner says, and hopes to take in many more.
“To do so, we need to build two more orphanages,” he says. Those orphanages will be located in Chennai and Kodaikanal. And Bethania plans to build three additional Kids Centers along the coast to help with the needs of children in extreme poverty.
“Many of these children are in families not in a position to provide for them,” Granner says. The Bethania Kids Centers provide daycare and aftercare programs for these children—providing a safe place for the children while their parents work. These centers also provide families with weekend medical and dental clinics as well as social and worship activities.
“Our passion is to meet the daily needs of these children and equip them in the development of their faith, vocation and vision for their lives,” says Granner.
In addition to the orphanages and Kids Centers, Bethania’s two centers for disabled children offer therapy, training, nutrition and medical care to kids with multiple physical and mental disabilities. In many cases, these children learn lifelong skills that enable them to become contributing members of their families.
Bethania is currently seeking funds to build the two additional orphanages and three Kids Centers. The estimated financial needs is $250,000 for the infrastructure and $120,000 a year of ongoing support. A volunteer event in the Eastern Great Lakes Region of Thrivent Financial will provide a gift of $55,000 if fund-raising activities can raise $150,000.
All donations to Bethania are used directly for children’s ministry and programs. All administrative costs are covered personally by members of the board of directors.
“We need to remember this isn’t just tsunami relief for a few months,” says Todd Heidelberger, a Thrivent Financial associate in Winchester, Virginia, and a member of the Bethania Kids board of directors. “This is relief for the next 10, 12, 14 years of these children’s lives. We bring them in and hold them, cherish them and raise them to be good productive citizens of India. But best of all, we introduce them to Christ and the hope that can be found in Him.”
For More Information
To learn more about Bethania Kids or to contribute to the cause, contact Bethania Kids by:
Writing: 6900 E. Joy Road, Ann Arbor, MI 48105
Calling: 734-996-9430
Visiting: www.bethaniakids.org
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Chapter Web site tips from top online volunteer Martha Davis
Martha Davis knows firsthand the benefits of creating and maintaining a chapter Web site. In addition to her own Northeast Houston Chapter’s and the Texas Region of Thrivent Financial for Lutherans’ Web sites, she also helps other Texas chapter leaders with their Web sites. Davis lists the following reasons for hosting a chapter Web site:
- Networking—It’s the key to keeping other chapters and people in your area informed. It’s so essential! A chapter Web site can allow for more volunteers to come together to tackle projects.
- It’s a way for members to meet their chapter leaders—Put your current chapter leader’s names and e-mail addresses on the site. You can even include biographical information and pictures so members can get to know you.
- Highlight upcoming important dates—Keep people informed as to what is happening in your chapter. People can go to your Web site to find more details. Even a map or a phone number. That way if others want to participate, they will have information.
- It connects your chapter with its churches—Your chapter Web site is a great way to keep the churches in your chapter informed with what the chapter is doing. Work with your churches to link to each other’s Web sites.
For help getting started on your own chapter Web site, go to the Texas Region’s Web site at http://www.lutheransonline.com/rfo475. Click on “Building Your Chapter Web site.”
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