Before the sun comes up on Wednesday morning, three garages-full of ceiling-high furniture will be unstacked, lugged outside and rearranged for sale in the back yard of Hospice House in Warkworth.
By 7am, customers are happily weaving between sofas, dining tables, chairs, dressers, cots, bikes, bunks and countless other items given away by their previous owners and waiting for a second round via the Hospice garage sale.
Dealers and regulars know to come early on Wednesdays but the bargains at the Warkworth Wellsford Hospice garage sale never seem to run out, says sale manager John McEwing.
“It looks chaotic but that might be part of the charm – shift a pile of blankets or a stack of garden pots and who knows what treasure you might find?”
However, there is little charm for volunteers in shifting furniture out of the sheds early in the morning and then moving the unsold pieces back inside at lunchtime. If it rains they also have to quickly cover up the furniture with large tarpaulins.
“It is frustrating, too, having to turn good donations away because we’ve run out of room to store them,” says Mr McEwing.
Staff and volunteers are looking forward to the end of 2016 when they expect to move the garage sale operation onto a new site, as part of a new hospice facility to be built in Morrison and Glenmore Drives.
In planning the new garage sale site, staff have visited recycling centres and worked with Auckland Council to identify opportunities for diverting waste from landfill. The Council provided some funding for a feasibility study and
for an adapted shipping container that is already in use for extra furniture storage.
In addition to having furniture stored and displayed mostly indoors, the future Hospice Garage Sale will have space for a range of new activities. Possibilities include an artists’ store, a yard for recycled timber and other building materials for DIY enthusiasts, and creative workshops to add value to donated goods and for community participation.
Warkworth Wellsford Hospice general manager Kathryn Ashworth says as well as increasing revenue to support the hospice’s core service, there is also potential for workshops to be held for patients as a form of therapy and support.
Business as Usual
The garage sale is open for business from 7am to 11am on Wednesdays but the site is busy on other days as well.
Up to a dozen volunteers turn up each Monday, Tuesday and Thursday to deal with donations that arrive steadily by the bag, box, boot, trailer and truck-full.
Furniture, appliances, electronics, tools, sports equipment, books, artwork, toys, household linens, clothing and kitchenware are sorted and shelved, and specially trained volunteers test electrical items for safety. Stained, broken, unsafe and otherwise unsaleable items are either broken down for scrap metal, thrown in the skip or set aside for the next trip to the tip.
On Tuesdays the rag-cutting team fills the hospice’s multi-purpose meeting room with hilarity as they cut old cotton clothing into rags for local tradies.
Meanwhile, two or three volunteers man the hospice van, collecting furniture and other bulky items from donors’ properties, ferrying goods to and from the Warkworth and Wellsford hospice shops and delivering furniture purchased at the Wednesday sale.
In the course of a month, the garage sale may see 50 different volunteers each playing their part in keeping the donations coming in, going out and raising money so hospice can continue supporting patients and families in its care.
