Shoppers arrived in droves for annual Community Church Crafters and Loudon County Habitat for Humanity garage sale Saturday morning at the Community Church at Tellico Village.
Hundreds worked their way through household items, clothing, furniture, sporting goods equipment and more. Kathy Blevins, one of the event organizers for the crafters, couldn’t keep count of the crowd.
“It’s a well known event in the community, and therefore people just put it on their calendar,” Blevins said. “We usually have an excellent turnout every year.”
Brenda Shultz is one of the shoppers who marks her calendar for the event, making a trip into the area to visit her two sisters every year.
“It’s a once-a-year tradition where three sisters get together,” Shultz said. “... We get great bargains and we go to lunch after. It’s just a great girls day out. I highly recommend every woman do that.”
The sale benefitting a good cause helps inspire the sisters to plan the annual stop.
“It’s all for charity, it’s church based and it’s just a community event,” Shultz said. “It’s very good for everyone.”
Last year the sale raised about $12,000. This year’s total was not available at presstime.
“That was a good sale,” Blevins said. “We can have anywhere between ($10,000-$12,000). ... All the funds, once they are divided between crafters and Habitat, it’s all generated back out into the community because we both work for charitable organizations.”
The funds raised by the event area split evenly between crafters and Habitat. Crafters later disperses its funds between multiple organizations.
“This sale, the fall crafters sale and the spring crafters sale — these three sales together — that’s money we divvy out at the end of the year, we disperse to Good Samaritan (Center of Loudon County), to Good Shepherd in Monroe County, organizations in the area like the volunteer fire department,” Charlene Barton, event organizer for the crafters, said. “We give it away. We keep a little bit for starting a new year to buy supplies, but it goes out into the community.”
For Habitat, funds raised are only part of the benefit of the sale.
“It’s just really good for us to have exposure to a lot of people and to help,” Shauna Oden, outgoing executive director for Loudon County Habitat for Humanity, said. “It’s fun to work with the crafters and work to help a lot of other agencies too.”
Seeing the crowds file through the event, most knowing that the money is for charity, is exciting for organizers.
“It’s a good community awareness raiser … and they are helping,” Oden said. “They’re helping us help families. It’s really just a wonderful event for all concerned.”
The sale itself took several months of planning, Blevins said. Tables were set up in the church Thursday and volunteers spent time Friday setting up merchandise for Saturday morning.
Crowds were lined up before the sale opened Saturday morning.
“I’m just overwhelmed with the magnitude of it,” Tony Gibbons, incoming director for Loudon County Habitat for Humanity, said. “This is smaller than years past and it’s still overwhelming with the number of items that come through here, the number of people lined up in the morning, waiting, almost like Black Friday leading into the holidays. They know about it, they know you can get good deals here and they know it’s supporting good causes.”
