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Crowds come out for annual Minturn rummage sale

Lauren Glendenning
LGLENDENNING@VAILDAILY.COM

MINTURN – Signs of a slow economy at the rummage sale meant crowds of people looking for bargains.

The Eagle Valley Community Fund’s 45th annual Rummage Sale finished Aug. 23. Vi Brown, president of the community fund, said the group is still counting money, but she thinks the total will only be about $10,000 less than their highest total ever.

They’ve already counted $178,000 and expect the total to be around $180,000.



” We were thrilled we made that much,” Brown said. “We knew that this was going to be a tough year.”

The rummage sale’s loyal shoppers were back, lined up outside the door as early as 5 a. m. waiting to get first picks at all the goods. The campsite at Maloit Park was full for the first time ever, Brown said.

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” The first day (of the four-day sale) was like the old days,” Brown said. “I think we had close to 5,000 people on the first day.”

The rummage sale had more volunteers than it’s ever had, she said. From nonprofit organizations that send volunteers to teenagers who couldn’t find jobs this sum mer, there were huge groups of volunteers working nearly every day over the summer. Volunteers all log their hours, and Brown then takes the total amount made at the sale and divides it by the total number of hours worked to get an hourly rate. The money is then given back to the organizations that sent volunteers based on the number of hours they worked. The rummage sale gives back to more than 60 nonprofits in the valley.

The auction had about half as many buy ers this year, but the ski room, shoe room and book room practically sold out of items. Paul Kuzniar, who ran the book room, said they sold about 1,000 books.

Brown said there wasn’t a single glove left in the ski room, and people bought used shoes this year more than ever before. In the kitchen section, Brown said every last pot and pan was sold.

” We had good crowds – we have such loyal customers,” Brown said.


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