Did you know – City Wide Yard Sale sign-up time is here again! Beginning April 1st through the first three weeks in April. We made a mistake the last few months, and had the date listed incorrectly… So for all the folks out there who called and were told one weekend, it’s true: We deceived you. City Wide Yard Sale 2010 is going to be May 15-16! No ifs, ands, or buts about it: May 15th and 16th.
We’re planning two other fairly exciting new things this year in the span of time just before and after the yard sales. Earth Day is April 22nd, and in honor of this 40-year anniversary, we’ve decided to hippie-out and be flower children. We’re planning some earthy activities for the little ones, and we’re going to be soliciting our businesses to help us invest in a “Community Garden.” This endeavor may not involve much outlay in terms of funds from you small business owners, we promise we won’t call you begging (we’re saving the begs for Caribou Cares About Kids in August) for money. We may however call you hoping for support, involvement, and some back-aching labor!
Also, keep your ears to the ground (an intentional pun intended, however weak), we’re planning a City Wide Commercial Open House for May 22nd! If you have an empty commercial building, and/or space for rent, we want you to be a part of this special one day Open House, along with everyone else in town too!
We’re planning to advertise throughout the state, surrounding communities, and with various developers, real estate professionals, bankers and other key folks who may help answer questions regarding financing, available programs, etc.
The deadline for inclusion on those maps, and sponsorship for the flyers and advertising is April 6th, and we will be soliciting heavily for participation from all the owners, businesses, brokers, bankers, and prospective building-takers! Back to the fairly famous City Wide Yard Sale: yep it’s that time. Drag out your garden hoses, your window screens, your rakes, and your flower boxes! We’re fixing to have a yard sale, Boys.
Do you watch the Hoarder Shows on TV? I have watched several the last few months, and it continues to give me a renewed sense of throw-it-out urgency. Really, I watch the show, and I just can’t imagine, and for the next several days after the last episode, I go through drawers, and closets, the basement, the garage, and I throw things away (I am sorry, Rossignol Sanitation, that’s the explanation). Toys, trash, things and stuff: it’s been just a-going on to its next life.
Bringing me back to Earth Day, re-cycling, re-gifting, and finding new homes and new uses for “things.” Save on some treasures; give a chance for a new life to that stuff bogging you down in your homes, and make a bit of extra mad money for yourselves: it’s not a bad circle of life for “that stuff.” Now to be honest, not all the things I’ve recently freed our drawers, and closets from has all gone straight to the barrels for Tuesday pickup. Some of it has gone to new homes with other book folks, or here and there where I think someone else might be able to use it, and some of it’s had a short visit on the corner of the front lawn, waiting for a new owner to pick him up, but some of the otherwise useless clutter I was saving has made its way out and away. Hallways are wider, rooms are larger, closets bigger. Besides, getting rid of things is almost as therapeutic as shopping (do it local, by the way), it’s a different therapy, but it’s therapy nonetheless.
I am trying to encourage you to lighten your loads with us during Yard Sale Weekend, and consider having a “sanctioned” yard sale. For the cost of the maps, and advertising, we estimate the folks we reach cost each yard sale person 2 cents per map. Fairly inexpensive advertising in terms of all the folks who come from far and near to get their next great find, and perhaps end up with a new this/that or the other!
Start looking in your closets and cubbies, and think what your asking price will be. Make sure to call or stop in and get your registration form, and with the early spring we’re off to a good chance it might be green and warm by May 15th! Surely too, the yard sale gods will look kindly upon Caribou, and grant us a rain-free weekend, we’re overdue! Think green, enjoy mud season, and see you soon!
Wendy Landes, MPA, is the executive director of the Caribou Chamber of Commerce & Industry. She can be reached in person at 24 Sweden Street, Suite 101; by telephone at 498-6156 or via e-mail at wlandes@cariboumaine.net.
