Dateline: May 4, 2006

Businesses promoting citywide garage sale

By Roger Estlack, Clarendon Enterprise

Mark your calendars and get ready for a big citywide garage sale in Clarendon on Saturday, June 17.

The Clarendon Enterprise and A Fine Feathered Nest, Inc., have teamed up to sponsor “Trash To Treasures,” the first of what they hope will become an annual event to coincide with Father’s Day weekend.

“What better gift could a man get than more space in the garage?” said Enterprise publisher Roger Estlack. “Dozens of families have garage sales scattered throughout the year. The idea here is to coordinate those sales, have them on the same day, and try to draw the biggest possible crowds to the sales.”

The brainchild of A Fine Feathered Nest’s Chriss Clifford and the Enterprise’s Ashlee Estlack, “Trash To Treasures” is designed to help as many families as possible make their garage sales successful this year. The name of the event plays on the old adage that “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure.”

While your kids may have outgrown that old ten-speed bike, it may be just what someone else has been looking for. The exercise machine you were going to use to lose all that weight may be ripe for selling now that you’ve slimmed up – or given up. A look around almost any garage will yield something that would really be put to better use by someone else. Better to sell it and take the cash.

Clifford hopes to see widespread participation in “Trash To Treasures” as a way to encourage people to think about something before they toss it out. In fact, her company has its own line of products that are “Too Good To Be Threw.”

“I’m interested in the whole ecology of the idea and encouraging recycling of old items,” Clifford said. “I also want to see people find artful ways to put objects to new uses.”

Future “Trash To Treasurers” will coincide with A Fine Feathered Nest’s annual Too Good To Be Threw consignment sale, and Clifford also has long-range plans to offer classes on ways to give lamps, furniture, and other objects new lives.

Residents who wish to participate in this year’s “Trash To Treasures” are asked to come by the Enterprise office at 105 S. Kearney starting next Monday, May 8, to sign up for the promotion and to get all the benefits that goes with it.

For $20 each household will get an expanded advertisement in the Big-E Classifieds – up to 50 words – and the exclusive “Trash To Treasures” garage sale kit, which includes tips for holding a successful sale, price stickers, and two yard signs.

In addition, the Enterprise will print a city map the week of the event indicating the location of each sale and will promote the citywide garage sale throughout the region.

A Fine Feathered Nest and the Enterprise intend for “Trash To Treasures” to be something that not only will help residents earn more money at their garage and yard sales but will also bring people from out of town to Clarendon to spend the day visiting our neighborhoods and patronizing our local merchants and restaurants.

Local merchants are encouraged to plan special promotions or sidewalk sales to coincide with the event, and advertising space will be made available on the back of the “Trash To Treasures” map.

“Citywide garage sales have proven successful in other communities, and we believe Clarendon can benefit from the same kind of coordinated effort,” Ashlee Estlack said.

The deadline for joining the “Trash To Treasures” promotion will be Friday, June 9, at 5 p.m. For more information, call 874-2259.