What is the Great Brookland Yard Sale?

GBYS FAQ:

The Great Brookland Yard Sale, GBYS, is a set date for Brookland residents to host concurrent yard sales. There are three goals for the GBYS: 1) To bring people from across the city into Brookland to see what a great community we have. 2) To get all of us out and about to meet our neighbors and 3) To get rid of our stuff and make a little bit of money.

When is the Great Brookland Yard Sale?
The Great Brookland Yard Sale is scheduled for Saturday, May 9, 2009 from 10:00 AM until 2:00PM (individual yard sale times can vary). The date was selected by a public survey on the Brookland Blog (http://www.brooklandblog.blogspot.com/) notice of which was posted to the list serve.

What do I need to do to participate in the GBYS?
Drop me an email at Fortinandrew@hotmail.com and provide your name, address and hours of your sale. If you want to super charge your sale, you can also provide a list of items and pictures. The information you provide will be posted to a dynamic google map and used to create a printed map each person can hand out at your yard sale. This will help you stand out and help buyers find your sale among the many we hope to occur that day.

How will the GBYS be marketed? Will People Show Up?

Like last year, this is a volunteer event and a lot of the coordination will be done via the Brookland Blog, the Brookland Listserve, and electronic communications. Our goal is to provide a common framework that Brookland residents can plug into and we can each to our part to get the word out.

As with last year we will be marketing the sale via local press that includes: The City Paper, DC North, WTOP Funformation calendar, Brookland Heartbeat, local blogs and other paid and free media. Individuals are encouraged to share information about the GBYS with their neighbors (especially those who aren’t on the internet!), other neighborhood list serves, with local churches, your office-mates and so on.
As in 2008, we will create a dynamic map of the yard sale and make it available to print for each yard sale to distribute to your shoppers.

Last year the attendance was surprisingly strong and it was a great event. Of course weather and other factors will play into attendance. But what do you have to lose?

Last year I participated and didn’t get any customers?
Sorry, we can create the event and conditions favorable to the yard sale, but can’t guarantee that those attending will want to buy what you are selling. However, participants who provided more details about their yard sale – items for sale, pictures, etc, tended to have more traffic and sold more things. Location helps too; those on the edge of Brookland got less traffic than those in the heart of Brookland.

What if I don’t have a yard?
We will be looking for businesses and locations for those without yards to use for the yard sale, so don’t let that stop you.

What if I want to help organize the yard sale?
Drop me an email at Fortinandrew@hotmail.com. My day job keeps me quite busy with travel, but I can always reply to emails. We will set up face to face meetings as appropriate.

We need volunteers for:

1) Marketing, signage – including event day signage.
2) Map creation and maintenance.
3) Rounding up participants
4) Lining up sponsors
5) Any other creative ideas and such.

Let's get going!