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Find some treasures at the Lions Club’s monthly garage sale

Contributor George Jansen describes the work behind the scenes
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All kinds of items are on sale every month at the Lions Club garage sale in Maple Park Mall. File photo

George Jansen

Observer Contributor

The Lions Club of Quesnel has a garage sale generally the last Saturday of each month at the Maple Park Mall. We do our best to keep people out ‘til doors open at 9 a.m.

Once inside customers must abide by two rules.

1. You can’t spit on the floor; and, 2. you can’t leave the store with money. Young and newly married people are largely missing from our valued clientele as they haven’t managed to max out their credit.

Inside you’ll find a large selection of books, kitchen items and furnishing such as couches and chairs along with dining room suites. There are people who have furnished a home here while waiting for their house to sell in Kelowna or Vancouver, and then kindly donate it all back when their stuff arrives.

The loyal and dedicated workforce are members of the Lions Club, but people who are willing to work for free are never chased away. The Lions have their own cube van to pick up donated material, but we prefer that smaller items be delivered to the mall. Sorting and displaying donated material is done Wednesday mornings. The first Wednesday after the Saturday garage sale, nothing gets done as members get that day off for good behaviour.

As donate items come in, the first job for us is to decide which items are to live and which to die. Everything gets sorted out by items that are sellable or can be consigned to the free table, while the clothing is sent off to other organizations. There are items I refer to as “dump stuff,” after having depreciated over the years down from the status of “mall stuff.” Dump stuff is further sorted into various categories, much of which will be reincarnated as recycled material. Items such as old telephone answering machines and other electronic things with short techno life spans are taken to the White House, sometimes referred to as the electronic recycle building next to the land fill.

The sheer number of smaller items, such as dishes, cutlery that may match your patterns at home, records, videos, CDs, and other bric-a-brac keep the check out cash register singing. We all need and like to have stuff. Our ability to accumulate stuff is only limited by the storage space available. Who knows, you may need it someday, and you can buy it from us very inexpensively.

After you are finished buying your treasures, the Lions can feed you with hot dogs, coffee, dessert items or chilli. I always get a good feeling from the chilli, as the beans’ sugars ferment all along your intestinal track into alcohol and a gas that’s vented out the back end.

All sales proceeds go to the many Lions projects in our community. Our flagship project is Silver Manor, a 31-suite housing project now nearing completion. Money may be donated to the Lions Housing Project by buying a brick at our monthly garage sale.

The next Lions Club garage sale will take place 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday May 26.