Wednesday 22 May 2013

Thrift shopping

Sorry, sorry. Where was I? Ah yes - recovering.

Last weekend was the annual mahoo-sive garage/rummage/jumble sale at my kids'school. I am one of five parents that run it, and let me tell you, you have to see it to believe it. Oh, wait a minute - now you can - https://vimeo.com/64163089. This is a video of us setting up last year. I am in there somewhere.

We collect donations every Tuesday for the entire school year. We sort it into boxes - women's sweaters, men's trousers, kids' clothes etc. and store it in a storage facility. Then, every May we recruit an army of volunteers, take it all out of the boxes and fill three gyms with "stuff". It takes two whole days to set the sale up, and we run it over a whole weekend. It's open to the public and this year, thanks to an increased usage of social networking, we were packed.

All proceeds go to the school's scholarship fund, and let's just say we exceeded all our expectations.

And don't you know that thrift shopping is all the rage these days? For once I'm up with (or is that "down with") the latest trend.




8 comments:

  1. I love a bargain me! Best thrift shops I know are in London just off Pimlico - designer goods for a mreer fraction of the cost - as long as you are size 6!!!!

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  2. I would have enjoyed your thrift shop, because I am sure it would have been dust free. That is my problem with second hand stores. I get very allergic and can't shop there.

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  3. Jumble sales are fun..... all the shoving and squabbling for a bargain and the anticipation of the possible find of the year.
    Strange how other peoples' junk is more appealing than one's own.
    Maggie x

    Nuts in May

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  4. Urgh. Jumble sales are part of my personal nightmare fantasies. Only with a bottle of Dettol and a latex onesie!

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  5. I hate hosting yard/tag/garage/jumble sales (haven't done it for years) but do love to 'pop some tags' at thrift shops going to sales that others are hosting (thanks, Macklemore) Definitely miss that living in Seoul!

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  6. I love thrift shopping but a friend of mine from NYC won't do it anymore because of fear of bedbugs. (!)

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  7. Actually Jen, that is a real concern. They're rife in a lot of big cities. (Scratch, scratch.)

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  8. My friend is a shopaholic but in the end after getting into debt had to scale it down to obsessive thrift store shopping. Every week she leaves a massive bin bag full of clothes she's bought for me outside my house, so I benefit from her obsessional shopping disorder. I lose patience in thrift stores because you have to sort through too much tat to get to the nuggets of gold.

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The more the merrier....

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