Seattle Press on Line - Greenwood Garage Sale Day offers over 120 bargain-hunting sites

Greenwood Garage Sale Day offers over 120 bargain-hunting sites

By Abby Freedman

Apr 11, 2002 -- As kids, most people dream of treasure hunting, exploring the world with a crumpled, aged, brown map in hand. But on April 20, Phinney Neighborhood Association offers crisp, clean guides to over 120 locales for "secondhand treasures" at the Ninth Annual Greenwood Garage Sale Day--enough booty for the explorer-kid in everyone.

Armed with maps showing the locations of all the yard sales, bargain hunters can drive or walk the trail of goods, which truly embodies that old adage, "One man's trash is another man's treasure."

"It's our experience that people love to walk [to the garage sales]," said Chardell Paine, special events coordinator at PNA, "Especially on west side of Phinney Ridge where the streets run north-south and are flat. Those streets are completely mobbed."

The individual sales can have, according to Paine, "pretty much everything you could possibly imagine." And the sales may not be so individual. While the majority of the participants are single families, some blocks team up at one house for multi-family sales. Greenwood Elementary is having a rummage sale, and one woman has decided to donate her profits to Ballard High School, which her children attend. Even a few businesses get into the spirit with sidewalk sales. Endless Knot, a clothing import store, is holding a large sale in PNA's community hall. There will even be a flea market in the association's lower parking lot, for people who live in apartments or in houses unsuitable for garage sales.

According to Paine, the event is immensely popular. Every year, about 2,000 people swarm the neighborhood during the course of the day. Inquiries about the date of the big day start months beforehand, from people who want to be sure they don't miss it.

"We start getting calls in January, from people who want to have the sales and people who want to go," Paine said. "It's got its own little life."

Linda Burghei, a five-year veteran of the Garage Sale Day, can vouch for its popularity.

"People keep coming all day long," she said. "It's so big, it takes most of the day to make it all the way through [the neighborhood]. We've often stayed open past the time it's supposed to end. If people are still coming and it's a nice day, we'll stay open."

Burghei says her family usually holds several garage sales in a year.

"We're great collectors of stuff," she said, laughing. "We go to a lot of garage sales and buy stuff and recycle it later."

Burghei's not sure yet what she will be selling, since the family teams up right before the sale to scour the house for unwanted items.

"I think we'll have some furniture this year," she said. "We still have a lot more things to go through. Usually there are a lot of kitchen things, and my daughter's getting ready to move into an apartment, so she's keeping stuff aside to sell."

Even if she doesn't know what will be sold, Burghei knows she'll make money. Most years, she said, she ends up with over $1,000. This inspired her brother, last year, to bring a truckload of his own things up from Raymond. He got about $650.

When the sale is over, Burghei, like so many of her cohorts, donates most of the unsold items to Goodwill, which will have a collection bin Saturday during the sale and Sunday morning after it.

"Last year, Goodwill filled three [dumpster-sized] containers," Paine said. "They would fill it up and take it out and bring it back to start over again."

For generous people who want to bring donations to the Garage Sale Day, there is only one caveat: Items can only be donated when a representative from Goodwill is there to accept them.

"Unfortunately, last year people just left a bunch of junk," Paine said, adding that PNA then had to pay to have it hauled to the dump. To help people avoid unnecessary trips to the collection bin, Goodwill's Web site lists acceptable donations at www.seattlegoodwill.org/whatdonations.htm.

All sales run from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. The Garage Sale Guide will be available starting on Friday, April 19, at the Phinney Neighborhood Center, the Greenwood Public Library, and the Greenwood Neighborhood Service Center. Seattle Goodwill will be staffing a donation station from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday and 9 a.m. to noon on Sunday.

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