By Stephen Cheslik
EAGLE TIMES MANAGING EDITOR
CLAREMONT, N.H. — A hundred tables don’t offer enough space to display everything for sale Saturday, Aug. 26, during St. Mary’s Catholic Church “gigantic” Indoor Yard Sale.
In its 15th year, the sale offers “everything from tools to antiques,” said parishioner and sale organizer Norma Limoges.
“We collect items for six days prior to the sale,” she said. “Everything has a price tag. I make thousands and thousands of price tags. … We get thousands of items.”
While the piles of items for sale may look completely unorganized from a distance, Limoges and about 100 volunteers have spent days organizing the goods.
“Every table has a category. Glassware and photo albums and garden supplies and toys and puzzles and more toys and bicycles and crafts,” Limoges said, giving only a partial list.
“People look forward to it every year. Things are reasonably priced because I have to move them,” she said.
Among the unusual items for sale this year are a high-end loom and two spinning wheels donated by a dentist whose late wife did her own weaving, Limoges said.
To keep sales moving, seven cashiers, assisted by two baggers each, will be ringing up sales and taking cash and checks. No credit cards are accepted. And for those that find more bargains than they can carry, high school students will be on hand to help carry items out.
The sale also offers layaway service.
And, for those who get hungry while shopping, volunteers will be selling doughnuts in the morning and hot meatball subs in the afternoon.
As of Wednesday, volunteers had already rolled out 700 meatballs.
Money from the sale benefits the parish, Limoges said.
“The parish is in need of repairs, and you can imagine the fuel oil it costs to heat the big church and the rectory and the gym,” she said. “And the money helps with all of that.”
“It will be jammed packed, I can assure you,” Limoges said.
The sale runs from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m., Saturday, at the St. Mary’s Gym, 92 Main St., Claremont.
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