At Christ Church, Spring Thing was a BIG event!
Christ Church’s annual fundraiser, dubbed “Spring Thing,” began in 1993 when Eardley Samuels brought the idea of a church garage sale from his former church, St. John’s United in Pointe-Claire, Quebec. The first of 26 annual sales was a relatively small event, held on the church’s circular driveway. “Departments” included books, plants, toys and sporting goods, much like we have had since resuming after COVID. The funds raised in those first few years were between $5,000 and $10,000.
Spring Thing grew and grew. At it’s biggest, every room in the church was used – four alone for clothing! The auditorium was packed every fourth Saturday in April, with shoppers looking for bargains in Housewares, Electrical and Appliances, Hobbies and Crafts and Toys. Outside shoppers could find furniture, sporting goods, home décor, garden equipment and plants. The Narthex was home to the Home Décor department and the Merigold Room was the place to find antiques and collectibles.
Donations came in from all over the community and the volunteers who sorted them sometimes had to make tough decisions. We rented a dumpster for those items deemed unsaleable. At an early-years meeting of the Spring Thing committee, there were concerns over the cost of “getting rid of peoples’ garbage”. Sam Horton replied that we were doing a valuable service in helping people discard things that they couldn’t bear to throw away. Then he commented that, if every household in the congregation gave $200 more a year, we wouldn’t need to hold a fundraiser!
At it’s peak, Spring Thing raised between $30,000 and $35,000 annually, through the efforts of over 200 volunteers each year. It became a community building event, drawing helpers from the ranks of our friends and neighbours. However, after 26 years, our volunteer base started to dwindle in both numbers and “energy”, and we scaled back on areas such as furniture pick-up and delivery, eventually declining to take furniture at all.
We were also generously supported, from the beginning, by businesses in the community such as: Battaglia’s, Doug Auld & Sons butcher, Truscott Italian Bakery, Tim Horton’s (Clarkson Village), IDA Courtesy Pharmacy, Maple Lodge Farms, Loblaws (Port Credit) and Metro (Clarkson Crossing).
Covid changed everything. 2019 was to be the last year for Spring Thing on the scale it had been. But many of us have heard, when we tell people the name of our church, “Oh, that’s where you had the big garage sale!”