Last week I had the joy of working at a huge fabric and yarn sale. This sale is an annual event organized by the Ujamaa Grandmas. The organization works to raise funds and awareness for the tens of thousands of African grandmothers who are struggling to raise their orphaned grandchildren. The first 2 days that I volunteered it was to help with the sale set up. The third day I worked a shift during the sale. It was all a lot of fun. Let me explain a few things about the event.
1. Everything offered for sale has been donated.
2. All the work is done by volunteers.
3. The money raised goes to a great cause.
4. Nothing goes to waste.
I had to take photos of the event because everything about it was so unbelievable. It was incredible that mountains of boxes and bags of donations could be turned into an impressive organized “pop-up” fabric and yarn shop. This is some of the chaos at the beginning, when it looked like a garage sale nightmare. Organization was swift and continual for 3 days.
Through the diligence and work of the volunteers, things started to shape up. Shelving units were constructed with apple boxes and packing tape. Look how sparse the main room was at the beginning, compared to a couple of days later.
Finally, it was showtime.
I have a few more photos of the aftermath but having a bit of trouble getting them to my computer. I’ll post them as soon as I get things working. Stay tuned to read about the success of the sale!
Time To Be Inspired 
I do look forward to hearing more about the success of the sale. What a tremendous event for a wonderful cause.
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What a wonderful sale event,.. Too bad I couldn’t join in the fun…
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Terri! Thank you for the inside scoop. Now I see how functional apple boxes can be. Your vantage points for photos really captured the excitement of the event. Great job!
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Thanks!
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Wow! Lots of stuff donated and lots of attendees. I could go crazy around all that fabric and sewing supplies.
Sunni
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Oh yes, that was easy to do, trust me.
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You all did a wonderful job of organizing and what a great reason for a sale. It looks very successful!
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Thanks. It was all great!
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Wow, you guys are the superheroes of organization, Terri! I wish you could email your services to my apartment. The sale looks like it scored a home run with everyone that visited. You sure know how to do presentation well!
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I can’t take much credit for that. This was the first year I’ve worked the sale. The organizers have simply got a great system worked out. I was truly pleased to be able to help. I’ll be available to help organize at your place when I finish my house. Don’t hold your breath.
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What a huge pile of stuff. Were people donating from their hoards? It’s a great way to dispose of things you realize you’ll never use. By coincidence I just saw a tv program about the grandmas only last week, here in Australia. Keep up the good work!
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The stuff comes from hoards, stores, people donate large portions of sewing rooms that have been “left” to them – it’s just crazy. Seriously some people would drop off one little bag, others would unload a whole truckload, and there were donations of all sizes in between. After about the 3rd sale, they thought that surely everyone would have emptied their houses of sewing extras, but this was the 7th year of the sale, and the biggest yet!
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Wonderful!
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Wow it looks awesome Terri.Congrats to you and the volunteers.
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Thanks, Ranu. We all had fun doing the work.
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That is unbelievable!
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Even more so when you were in the middle of it. It was such fun!
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