The exciting St Clement’s Church annual garage sale is on for Saturday the 5th of November starting at 8AM at the St Clement’s Parish Hall, and wrapping up after lunch around 2PM. With the help of Yass Valley Anglican Parish, wife and husband team Kerry and Ray England from St Clement’s have been working hard to coordinate the garage sale, organising many donations. This year, Lesley Hunt and her grandson from All Saint’s Church in Murrumbateman will be running a barbecue for garage sale goers.
“We’ve had ski boots, teapots, you name it, we’ve got it, probably!” said Kerry.
“We have a whole collection of somebody’s craft collection from over many many years. We have amazing stuff. There’s certainly things for children, we have lots of toys, soft toys, games and books.”
At last year’s garage sale, the entire Parish Hall was brimming with a variety of items from toys, beautiful kitchen china and dinnerware, clothes, books, photo frames, trinkets, fabrics and craft supplies, clothing, and some beautiful pieces of furniture.
All the funds raised at the garage sale will go to church fundraising. The garage sale is a major yearly fundraiser for the Anglican Parish. Funds raised will be used for several purposes depending on what’s needed. Kerry explained a lot of the time, the money is put into a fund to keep refreshing the parish hall, which badly needs painting and various other maintenance jobs at the moment.
Given its historical significance, heritage and place in the Yass community, supporting the maintenance of St Clement’s is very important for Parish members like Kerry and the town as a whole.
“St Clement’s church is a major part of the town life and it’s such an old established Parish. It’s very important to keep it well maintained and well supported,” said Kerry.
St Clement’s has held garage sales for a very long time. Tom and Dorothy Lock started them, with Kerry and Ray taking over after they retired.
Last year’s garage sale was extremely successful, in part due to the two years of on-and-off lockdown the town experienced. This enabled the church to collect more donations over that time, and people were also very happy to get back out in the community. The St Clement’s garage sale would have been one of the first garage sales held in the community after the lockdown.
Kerry explained that people love the garage sale because there is such a wide variety of items; you never know what you might find.
“It’s a real treasure trove!”
Garage sale volunteers from across the parish equally enjoy the event.
“We just love working together, we have a great time just looking at old things,” said Kerry.
“My husband Ray is my number one supporter. Then I have great support from the whole parish, including those in Murrumbateman.
So set the alarm for Saturday 8 am for the St Clement’s Garage Sale this year, have a wonderful time wading through the vast array of donations, and make your purchases count towards maintaining this beautiful old church at the heart of our Yass Town.
Southerly Jones
