Thanks for the ideas.We are in the process of planing our 2nd rummage sale. We did pretty good last year for very little money. so we are expaning this year.
we are adding the local party jump company to our sale to have something for the kids along with face painters and balloons.
The party jump company we are giving free advertising and they will give us part of the profit from what they are charging for a 5 min jump.

Happy Spring and happy shopping! [img]smile.gif[/img]

A couple more notes. First, we chose to have a one-day-only sale to keep things simple. Second, if you hope to make money off concession sales, then you need to make it clear to your "renters" what they can and can't sell.

Several years ago we had a similar event for homemade crafts (non-food). Our part was primarily community service and concession sales. But some of the crafters (i.e., sewing, candles) also brought coolers of cokes and boxes of candy and then set their prices to be less than the concession stand. It was rather tacky, but we hadn't explicitly told them they couldn't do that, so we just had to put up with it.

We've done it for the last two years in the large parking lot at our school. I believe we sold stations as per a (car) parking space. One was $10, 2 for $15. You can buy as much space as you need.

Additionally, the PTO has its own space which is the last one (furthest in). We arrange for a Goodwill or Salvation Army truck to be parked at the back of the lot all day and collected at the end. So as people close up, they can donate leftovers to the PTO spot and/or carry it to the truck. The PTO spot is closest to the truck, so at the end of the sale, we just load up. Makes cleanup so easy!

Last year we allowed a local Boy Scout (lunch/hot dogs) and Girl Scout (bake sale) troup to run concession stands to raise money for their projects. The PTO sold coffee and donuts.

As far as marketing, we pushed both the sale of spots and donating items to the PTO's spot. We asked for anything except clothes as they are hard to sort and price. (Of course, we got some anyway.) We had a small group of volunteers come price everything Friday night and then some sign up for garage sale shifts and concessions.

It was a lot of fun, and really not that much work (at least compared to some activities).

If anyone wants this rummage flyer for their files, it will be at the above-mentioned link probably thru the 2nd week of May.

###

We're having our second try at our outdoor rummage in May. Our flyer is on line at the following link and has most of the approved School legal-ese on it:

www.southmilwaukee.org/lakeview/2003Rummage.pdf

I would try and hold this event when something else going on near your school or if there is a community festival week in your town that you can draw customers from.

In our case, it's Little League Opening Day and our school is only two blocks from the park. LOTs of customers! The only glitch may be the weather - as we have it outside - and in the Upper Midwest it could actually snow!!

Our biggest obstacle (and expense) has been advertising. 2002 was our first year. I hand made rummage signs and paid for a column ad in our local paper (total costs $100). We only made $250 in profit, but for a first time, that was fine with me. All the booth renters had great profits and had more than good things to say about our event because we had tons of customers due to the LL opening day.

THIS YEAR - Since newspaper ads in our city are mega-bucks, and only 15% of our community subscribes, we opted to take our profits from last year and spend it on 50 quality signs on aluminum wires, (the kind used during elections) that will be put around town 1 week prior to the rummage. ($200).

This year, we're adding a concession stand (hopefully more profit for us), and I'm trying to focus on more crafters to come and sell. I have been contacted by a bee keeper - who wants to sell her award winning honey and a girl scout troop who is buying two booths to sell household items for their projects. I have also gone to local craft fairs to "pitch" this idea to crafters and handed them a flyer.

I have also let the local Chamber of Commerce know about this and any small business owner who will listen, to come and sell their wares at our rummage. I'm trying to get our local lawn & garden center owner to come rent a booth and give live consultations on lawn care.

To entice volunteers to help, we give them free booth IF they will work a two our commitment in any aspect of the rummage (set up, concession, tear down, etc).

One problem we encountered this year - THREE tupperware reps wanted booths. We installed the policy that school volunteers get first shot, then the community on a first come-first serve basis.

(whew) is that enough ideas to get you going? If not, my e-mail is on the flyer.

###

Has anyone ever done a community yard sale? Where someone could rent space and sell their stuff for a day or two and the school would take care of all the advertising. If anyone has every done this can you please give me some ideas on how.