Dawes Family in New Zealand

Grove Sale

Garage Sales are a huge thing over here, every weekend there are hand made posters plastered up in various areas telling the world they are having a garage sale. It’s something New Zealanders love to do – find a bargain – and as we have accumulated so much stuff over the last few years we thought it would be a fun and fab thing to see if the whole street would like to join in to and offer people a bargain!

We consider ourselves very lucky, we have an amazing street of friends, there is the odd one or two that likes to cause us some grief from time to time, but generally everyone is so lovely and we have such an amazing community spirit. I mentioned the idea to my friend Alina and she thought it would be an amazing idea, an email went round and it was all hands on deck!

We all shared the cost of some newspaper advertising and night after relentless night Alina and I would ‘advertise’ as we did our usual evening walk, popping adverts up on trees, train stations, shops – anywhere there was some space – our advert would be! We had other neighbours get tables for us from their church and everyone took a poster or seven and stuck them up at work. The advertising was massive.

Come Saturday morning around 7am people started to show up – with a start time of 9am that of course got us all into a fluster. People raked through the boxes whilst we tried to get things out and money was swapping left right and centre. Crowds of people arrived in the blistering sunshine and we were well and truly under way, the advertising efforts were worth it.

We all had such a great day, we chatted to people we would not normally meet, we had a laugh with some who tried to bargain us down from a $1 to 50 cents, and we all as friends and neighbours shared the happiness of making a bit of cash.

The wonderful day finished off with a BBQ and drinks together and everyone was truly happy, and from the feedback we had I think this might have to be an annual event!