Things found while working the biannual campus yard sale
In college, I helped organize and run the campus yard sale, which was billed less as a sale and more as a big recycling project: We collected thing students didn’t want from their dorms as they moved out at the end of the semester so that they didn’t just throw them away, and then at the beginning of the next semester, we sold them back to the community and donated/recycled the leftovers.
For size context, I sold ten pens for $1 and a Roomba for $25. Minifridge with microwave goes for at most $50. Each sale, we made at least $12,000 with stuff left over. (We were non-profit; the money went to other campus clubs that volunteered and covered our storage and box costs. Though one year, we got a better storage deal and had some money left over, so us admins got team jackets.)
So yeah, here are things that college students owned in their dorms/apartments in Boston, decided “I don’t want this anymore,” and then gave to us for free by leaving them in a big red bin in a lobby:
- too many crutches and half-filled shampoo bottles
- plush seal from the local aquarium that still had the tag on (that I snagged for myself because I previously had bought my brother the same one and knew it was $30)
- an opened resealable package of frozen sliced salmon
- a wooden box with nails sticking out of it on most sides. The current students must’ve changed the password so graduates like me can’t log into the Drive anymore so I can’t get the picture from the Relics folder, but it was a mystery for years and we continued to show it to new members as the highlight of what could emerge in this project. I think what we eventually guessed it was was like an antique corn holder or something
- whatever shot glass, pouring cup, tableware, cup set things these are:
- unopened copy of Shadow of Mordor for the PS3 (that I snagged before the sale started shh)
- a PS3
- a PS4
- this TV
- mini hammer that becomes screwdrivers
- set of coffee table books with textured covers and gilded pages featuring pictures of watches
- plush lima bean
- M&M camera
