Rotary garage sale a win-win-win for everyone

A start-up daycare centre in the Cote des Neiges district sorely needed basics to furbish the fledgling centre that already has 80 children waiting for care. The administrator was able to fill her car with so many children's books, dishes, and utensils, then had to come back on Monday morning with a truck for more furniture and toys

The Welcome Hall Men's Mission took away two truckloads of furniture, books and more to sell/give away at their warehouse thrift store on De Courcelle Street.

Members of a Verdun church carted away a truck filled with necessary items for their parish and beyond. The library at the Montreal Botanical Gardens was the beneficiary of eight cartons of books about landscaping and gardening, with enough left over to give three boxes of gardening and plant books to a friend of Rotary who will take them back home with him to Guatemala. And the club will ship seven boxes of much-needed books, especially children's books, to a centre it regularly sponsors in Trinidad.

The community at large came in droves to take advantage of great prices on items they could not normally afford — like televisions for $5, nearly new couches for $100, and a working Hewlett Packard ink jet printer for $10.

That same spirit of giving was evident in the people who made all that possible. The residents of Westmount and beyond who generously gave their belongings, some of them very valuable and most saleable. The dedicated Rotarians who for a year met weekly to pick up and store all the furniture, televisions, house wares, literally hundreds of books and more. And then for a week before the sale with the help of committed volunteers, many of whom have for years been giving their time to the garage sale, first schlepped the abundance of items into the arena and then sorted into various departments. The volunteers alongside Rotarians then spent the day selling and wrapping all those items. And finally the employees of the City of Westmount who spent the week setting up, trouble shooting, schlepping, cleaning up and more so Rotary and the community could benefit from the mammoth garage sale. If you weren't there you missed a truly remarkable event of community helping community help community.

What a great event!