- April 25, 2024
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Palm Coast resident Connie Rohloff laid out dozens of purses on the pavement at the old Food Lion parking lot in Flagler Beach, and sold a Coach bag — probably once worth around $80, she said — for $5.
Rohloff said she didn’t mind. “I might’ve paid $5 for it 10 years ago at a garage sale,” she said, and anyhow, it was for a good cause.
Rohloff was one of about 15 people to arrive at the parking lot Saturday morning with a carload full of goods to hawk at the Palm Coast Rotary Club’s first “trunk sale,” raising money for charity initiatives and organizations including the Flagler County Free Clinic, PolioPlus and a high school foreign exchange program that has brought teens from Ecuador, Sweden, Paraguay, Hungary and France to Flagler County and sent local kids abroad.
Rohloff isn’t a Rotary Club member. She just loves second-hand sales. “You see stuff that you just have to have, because it’s so cool, and it’s so cheap, and you could never afford it retail,” she said. But she plans to give the $5 from the bag to the club, and might join.
For the Rotary Club’s first trunk sale — a trial run on Sept. 14 — no one paid a fee to sell their goods, and donations from the sales were not required. That will change in the future, Rotary Club representatives said.
“We’re going to be charging $15 trunk space for people to set up their wares,” Palm Coast Rotary Club President-elect Bob Snyder said. “All of it goes to Rotary charities.” If about 15 vendors show up at the next trunk sale, on Oct. 12, the event would bring in about $225 in fees, and some more money in optional donations.
At Saturday’s sale, Rotary Club members and supporters laid their goods on tables and on cloths spread out on the ground, leaning back in beach chairs or against the hoods of their cars to watch and haggle as people browsed.
They sold books, wall hangings, stereo records, perfumes, VHS cassettes, jewelry, clothes, incense holders, lamps, pet carriers, tools, bookshelves, Christmas ornaments and just about any other thing they found laying around that would fit into the trunk of a car or the bed of a pickup truck.
Palm Coast Rotary Club member Bebe Kelly counted out the $79 she’d made from her goods by about 11 a.m. A part-time Avon saleswoman, she’d sold Avon products as well as a lamp and a bathroom cabinet with glass doors.
Bev Zemlock made about $10 by 10:30 a.m. selling some books and Christmas ornaments. She said she was there to support Rotary and hopes for better turnout at future trunk sales.
“I think it’s a great idea,” she said. “It’s a very worthwhile cause. Not too many people know about it today, but I think it will get better.”
Rohloff, the second-hand sales fan, said she plans to haul goods back out to the Food Lion parking lot in her baby-blue pickup truck in October’s trunk sale.
“Especially now that’s it’s going to cool down, I’ll definitely be back,” she said. “I like to get into community involvement and meet people.”
The next Rotary Club trunk sale will be 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 12, at the Food Lion parking lot at 2500 Moody Blvd. in Flagler Beach. For more information, call 845-527-7894, or email [email protected].
