Sanders County Yard Sale-ing returns for 2nd year

Last Friday and Saturday people came out in droves to check out all of the special finds, knicknacks, antiques and just plain interesting items that the Sanders County Yard Sale-ing event had to offer.

The Yard Sale-ing event was county wide and took place over two days, three highways and eight towns with multiple yard sales going on all over the area. There were over 50 different yard sales set up over the two day period, offering an array of items for people to purchase.

The county wide yard sale is in its second year and is the brainchild of Diane Laube and her husband Bruce. The Laube’s are originally from Illinois and during the summer of 2006 they went back to Illinois and saw signs advertising for “Sale-ing 75.” The couple was curious and discovered that a huge 40 mile long yard sale was taking place down Highway 75.

The Laubes thought this was a great idea, so they got the name of the person who started it and visited the Web site for the Sale-ing 75 event and found out that it had been going on for four years.

“After looking on the Internet and doing some research we found out that this happens all over the country,” Laube said. “We felt that it was definitely something that our community could benefit from.”

The Dew Duck Inn in Plains has been a sponsor for both years and also participated in the yard sale with this year, selling a variety of goodies in front of the motels.

“This is a really neat thing for our community to be a part of,” co-owner of the Dew Duck Inn Charlotte Buljung said.

Buljung said Friday that they had already received a lot of interest at the two-day event. “People tend to get up early and everything has been moving ever since,” she said. “We barely had things set up when the first people started to arrive.

Buljung employed the help of her sister Pat Schilling who is from Washington, and Buljung’s grandchildren, Morgan Allgood, Mary Myers and Jordy Myers all from Colorado.

Allgood said she was really enjoying the Sale-ing event, especially since it was such a pretty day.

The children sat under a tent and offered lookers free lemonade and cookies while they browsed the items that were for sale. Items included a light up reindeer, a collection of snowmen, and a huge collection of duck memorabilia, which is appropriate given that it was the Dew Duck Inn that was selling it.

The largest yard sale in the United States and the one that many others hoping to start their own have looked to is the 127 Corridor sale. It is the world’s longest yard sale and spans 630 miles from Defiance, Ohio to Gadsden, Ala., with the headquarters located in Jamestown, Tenn.

While the Sanders County Yard Sale-ing event couldn’t easily span 630 miles, it is still impressive in its own right and has grown, even in just a years time.

“Last year we had a little over 40 vendors and this year we’ll have at least 56, which is about a 26 percent increase,” she said. Those are just the ones that register with the Sale-ing. Some people decide to take part in their own yard sales that aren’t affiliated with the Sanders County Yard Sale-ing event, and though it is only $15 to register and all of the money goes back to the county, Laube said she was happy that people wanted to have their own events and participate their own way.

The Laubes are members of the Thompson Falls Community Development Corporation and originally pitched the idea to them and everyone in the organization thought it was a really neat idea and something that Sanders County should be a part of.

Laube said that the whole purpose is to help people have successful yard sales and bring money into the county. “Each year we try to make it a bigger event, that’s what we want.”

Laube said eventually they would like to see each community in Sanders County have its own committee so they can organize each area. With each town having their own committee there is the opportunity to get different businesses involved to either sponsor or participate. Laube also said that it would make it easier to get local organizations involved to do big sales or fundraisers. She said churches and local chapters of the 4-H Club could sell food and other items to make it more of an event.

Laube said there are several other things she’d like to see happen as the Yard Sale-ing event continues to grow. She wants to see an increase of yard sales and people coming out to buy every year and she would like to see more and more people step up and volunteer. Laube would also like to encourage town businesses to do sidewalk sales in conjunction with the Yard Sale-ing event.

“It’s been exciting,” Laube said. “We got excellent feedback last year. People had a great time and they had fun and met neighbors they didn’t even know were their neighbors.”

Laube said there is lots of wonderful merchandise out there and encourages anyone to participate. “Next year we want even more people to have yard sales and we would love to have more business sponsors because people need food, places to stay and gas.”

Business sponsors are advertised on signs throughout the Yard Sale-ing event, and they are featured on the Yard Sale-ing’s Web site for a full year.

Laube said that she felt the event went pretty well as a whole, but they were getting some mixed reviews and felt that Friday went better than Saturday. “Some had good turnout and some had very little, it all depended on what they had for sale,” she said.

For next year she said they plan on improving the signs to make them more visible, but feel that the posters were really positively received and helpful to those who needed to use them. She said she wasn’t sure on the exact turnout but does believe that gas prices and the economy had some effect on people showing up for the event. However they did get some people from California, Washington and as far away as New Jersey.

Bruce Laube said that $16,000 traded hands last year and he feels that they did better this year and is proud to be a part of event that supports the community in a lot of different ways. “It was a positive weekend and a positive experience,” he said. “There was quite a bit of traffic, especially on Friday and I feel that the traffic was definitely up in terms of local people.”

The Laubes said there are some things they like to improve upon next year and excited to see how the Yard-Saleing event grows. It will take place during the last full weekend of June.