By Natalie Bazinet
Staff Writer
CARIBOU — It was a record-breaking year for Caribou’s annual City Wide Yard Sale, but for a different reason than you’d think.
According to Interim Director of the Caribou Area Chamber of Commerce Jenny Coon, this is the first year in history that someone registered livestock for sale on the yard sale map. The maps themselves proved to be a hot commodity this year as well; chamber officials printed an initial 9,000 maps followed by an extra 1,200 to make certain there were enough to go around. Despite efforts to make sure that no bargain hunter’s travels went unmapped, the was still a shortage in maps which can only mean that this year’s City Wide Yard Sale on May 21 and 22 was a huge success.
Aroostook Republican photo/Natalie Bazinet
Kim Ouellette takes an opportunity between customer rushes to straighten up the racks of the professional-looking yard sale she held at her home over the weekend with her family. The family figured they would donate the items remaining after the sale’s completion to Catholic Charities.
With more yard sales to visit than there were hours in the day — 133 registered yard sales, to be specific — many bargain hunters took a divide-and-conquer approach to tackling the deals with fervor usually reserved for Black Friday. (Coincidentally, the two major shopping events approximately signify each other’s halfway mark).
Because of the deals that the 133 yard sales advertised on the map, many customers made sure to bring cargo-friendly vehicles on their annual shopping sprees; Coon even knows of a group of ladies from New Hampshire who bring a U-Haul with them every year.
More practically, Rose and Dan Morrissey from Bairdsville, N.B. made sure to bring their pick-up truck to Caribou for the City Wide Yard Sale. As of Sunday afternoon, they’d done a pretty decent job of filling the truck’s bed with bargains.
Saturday was clearly busier than Sunday, as “people want first pick of the bargains,” Coon reasoned.
Dwight and Liz Stickles’ garage sale spanned their driveway and garage, and the two agreed that there were at least 19 people combing over tables of items in the garage alone at one point on Saturday.
Sunday’s yard sale goers got off to a bit of a late start, but things picked up in the afternoon. The yard sale at Kim Ouellette’s house was estimated to have seen well over 500 shoppers between the two days.
Aroostook Republican photo/Natalie Bazinet
Dan and Rose Morrissey from Bairdsville, N.B. scanned the yard sale of Dwight and Liz Stickles on May 22 during Caribou’s annual City Wide Yard Sale.
Even though Coon was kept pretty busy with Caribou Chamber matters (including the Chamber’s very own yard sale), she did have a chance to get out into the community and assess how the event was progressing.
She saw what everyone else in Caribou saw — yard sale directional signs seemingly on every corner, scores of people traversing the city streets (some even with little wagons to tote their purchases between yard sale sites), cars parked on both sides of the roads and businesses packed with customers.
“I really want to thank the community members — it is more work for them than me to make this event possible,” Coon said. At this point, Caribou’s City Wide Yard Sale isn’t just about capitalizing on bargains and selling exercise equipment.
“Members of the community were welcoming everyone into their yard sales and into their homes,” Coon said. “People were even offering coffee to their yard sale patrons,” she added. “The community really makes this happen.”
City Wide Yard Sale customers really did receive first-class service — many vendors even added bottled water, popcorn and hotdogs to their sales list, catering to hungry customers.
Coon said that she was also impressed to see so many non-profit groups holding yard sale fundraisers, including various Relay for Life teams, organizers of the Children’s Discovery Museum and the Boy Scouts.
