Freecycle Garage Sale With No Selling - A Success, No More, No Less.

Free Garage Sale in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada!

On Saturday, September 25th and October 9th, we held two rather successful Free Garage Sales, which, as someone clever pointed out, is an oxymoron. Yes, indeed everything was free!

Some of us experienced one form of free or another (even if the bill came months later when you least expected it!). Were the Freecycle give aways successful? Yeah! Second one even more, than the first one. 

We had personal friends donate some treasures on the Friday before, just to have enough items to get started, to accommodate the early birds. We don't like to dissappoint. Disappointed they were not. The ones who showed up first brought huge garbage bags and suitcases with shoes, beautiful clothes, books on a variety of subjects, kitchen ware and more!

Before the treasure seekers showed up, we mastered a handy clothes rack out of six boxes and a broom stick! The boxes already had holes on the sides (Banana Boxes) where the handle fit perfectly! We placed belts and purses in each of the box to add some weight, to avoid falling on the seekers. The neighbors had a Freegaragesale Friendly Fence, which is an important feature for an event like this, where pretty dresses and abayas hung comfortably (I made sure).

When the overflowing suitcases arrived with MORE gorgeous clothing, the event was full of people, the treasure lovers attacked the suitcase, ever so gently, and the clothes were everywhere! Haha! It was fun to watch. Wish vines existed then!

Suddenly, we had a slightly clever, actually an amaztastic idea, to strategically place the suitcases away from the centre of the event, and closer to the street, so to disperse the crowd a little tad. The clothes were definitely a hit, and all because people were so very generous with their donations, also careful to bring clean and superb items. There were a few single lonely shoes that noone wanted to adopt, old socks and other under garments, but for the most part, I was rather impressed with the treasures! Cute baby clothes, too! I kept some just because they were so adorable. No, I didn't do that. Or did I?

All in all, it was the funnest to organize, we truly had the funnest time. What a delight and joy for the "shoppers". Almost everyone left with a little something they liked. The cute girl who brought HUGE suitcases with clothes didn't want the suitcases back, but a fine gentleman came to the sale right after she left and happily became a new owner! Safe travels.

The purpose of the Free Garage Sale, is to benefit the community in more ways than one. The community gains financially through obtaining items they otherwise would have had to purchase with the expensive moneys no one has. There are folk that make enough money to live comfortably, but they might not be able to afford to treat themselves with a sushi dinner, Wii, movies, or whatever else a human may enjoy. By acquiring several items that they want or need, saves these individuals money to be able to either spend it on needs, like food, or an outing they like. And it doesn't mean that the individuals benefitting need to be starving to benefit. Anyone and everyone can and should take up this opportunity! Tchye.

Another significant purpose, is preserving the environment. We iz very passionate about protecting the Earth. Less hats and books go into the landfills, better for our souls. And of course, health secondarily.

If you generally want free stuff or want to give away things on a regular basis, join the Freecycle Community. You can find all the different groups in different parts of your country and city here:

http://www.freecycle.org/

Save the landfills, benefit yourself and the community at large. Love. Peace.

Please share if you organized a similar event!

@AnastasiaSongs