HoundsGood: Chronicles of a Virtual Volunteer

Last summer, we had a charity yard sale.   Having it on the charity’s property wasn’t an option due to the size and shape of the space.  It would also be a safety hazard with a higher volume of vehicles.  No one else wanted to have it at their house, so we decided to take the bull by the horns and have it at our house.    It was successful, but we had never seen so much greed so early in the morning!

I am well aware that there are some very nice people that come to yard sales.  There are people looking to stretch the dollar for their family, baseball card collectors, nosey but harmless neighbors, etc.  However, I wasn’t quite prepared for the display, being that this was supposed to all be for a good cause.

We were setting up, and about thirty minutes before the sale, we had an older couple in our driveway taking us to task for not “being open on time.”    It just got better from there.    Another woman picked up a serving plate.  I had it at $6.00.   It was a substantial piece that had cost a nice penny a long time ago, I would have imagined.  It was the first twenty minutes of the sale and she had said she would pay $4.00.

I smiled and told her “It is for a very good cause.”

“Your HUSBAND told me I could have it for $4.00″

Nice, now my own husband is against me! “The sale just opened.  If it is still here later, perhaps, but right now, I want $6.00. ”

Maybe I shouldn’t have pressed the issue.  If she had asked me and was nice about it, I might have done it, but she was very rude.

Later, someone from another charity pulled up.   They told me about everything they did for the kids at one of the schools.  I told them that it was wonderful what they were doing.  I thought that surely this was a kindred spirit and would appreciate what we were doing, if not buy something.   I wasn’t prepared for what they said next.

“You know, lots of yard sales give us stuff free because we are a good cause,” he hinted as he poked around at the merchandise.  A little later, he didn’t “hint,” he sort of pressed the issue. He knew full well that our yard sale was also for a good cause, and we could use all the help we can get.

It is one thing to make it known that you take yard sale leftovers, but asking another charity who is trying to raise money to give up their merchandise to another charity?  Is that charitable to be so presumptious?  Apparently, he thought so.   I am very supportive of people trying to make a difference, and I may have said that “We have so much, sure, take something,” or gave him a discout if he hadn’t acted so entitled and thought his cause was greater and if we had items that weren’t selling and were specifically what he was looking for.  The other thing that confounded me is that, being a group who was collecting items for children, he was certainly eyeing up and hinting around a collectible Jim Beam bottle and some higher ticket tools, not bookbag types of items he was collecting for kids.   

Actually, the more I thought about it, it was my responsibility to not give the stuff away right off the bat as the people who donated the items intended them to go to raise money for the cause, not another one, unless I had permission.

A man got very indignant that we wouldn’t sell something that was roped off inside our garage and under a tarp.  What’s more, is that someone was sitting in our car!   She had the audacity to tell me that “It’s here, so it must be for sale! Charities get rid of cars!”  Not a business truck with my husband’s name slathered across it, especially.

Will we ever do this again?  Well, our charitable nature is going to go to purchasing items at charity yard sales, or lending a hand, but it is going to be a long time before we have another one at our house.  

If we did, we would:

1) Set things up on tables in the garage, and the carry the tables out.
2) Set up a tent.  Nothing big, just the small ones.  In case it rains, there would be no excuse for people to come into the garage.
3) Put “no early birds” in the ad.
4) Make a HUGE sign that reminded them it was for a charity.  We told them, it was in the ad, and we had a table set up with fliers about the charity, but people were still at their worst behavior.
5) It would have been a good idea to have a more sophisticated info table about the charity.  We should have taken the items we normally take to street fairs and booths.

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