The charity is running out of funds, but the strays keep coming! Volunteers selling their bodies on the street aren’t making enough money so the committee decides that a jumble sale is an excellent idea to raise money. Everyone agrees the 6th of December is when the sale will go ahead, but no one realises it is only two and a half weeks away. Pat and Dave (the founders of the charity) go hell for leather desperately trying to find a venue. The owners of the Bougainvillaea apartments, located in Spartia, very kindly offered the use of their bar and patio free of charge. The only indoor section of the venue was the bar, which meant we needed to hold the jumble sale on a dry day. In hindsight, the Bougainvillaea wasn’t the best place to hold a jumble, especially in December, but it was free and the charity was desperate.

This was a good fund raising idea, but more time was needed to organise it. Pat realises she needs more help and support. It was no good having a venue with nothing to sell. The next step was to contact as many people as possible asking for jumble, help and support. The response was amazing and within a week the donations started coming in from all over the island. A large apartment was used to store the goods, but no-one anticipated the response would be so great.

Claudia, Jane & Pat, setting out the stalls

As well as people sorting out their old clothes we had supporters putting there hidden talents to work. A stall would be needed for home made cakes, biscuits jam, and pickles. Some members went to work making toys, patchwork quilts, hats, gloves etc., and Barry from Mazarakata made an amazingly professional tombola. The response was heart warming and things looked promising.

One week before the jumble things went pear shaped. The apartment used to store the donations was full and you couldn’t get into the room. Supporters were working hard to collect jumble but no one had foreseen the problems Pat and Dave would have sorting it. Alone, they tried to sort the jumble but the task was too much. Don’t forget, they also had the job of caring for all the dogs and cats as well, some of which were sick and needed a great deal of care.

Jenny ran one of the craft stalls. She hand makes the quilts herself!

Pat sent out another SOS and requested help with a job she thought was impossible. Sure enough, volunteers turned up and went to work separating old items from new, children’s clothes from adults, craft from bric-a-brac etc.

Friday the 5th December, the day before the jumble was a nightmare. We needed transport to take the donations to the Bougainvillaea, but all that was available were volunteers using their own vehicles (we could have done with a removal van). Eight cars were packed to the brim with jumble, there was so much stuff you couldn’t see out of the windows. Drivers struggled to find the gear stick amongst the bags and boxes, plus, some of them didn’t have a clue where they were headed for!

Bad weather had been forecast for the day of the jumble. Eight o’clock in the morning we set off in the hope of getting the stalls ready by ten thirty. The sky was grey and there was no way we could set up all the stalls inside the bar area, so volunteers went to work outside. Silently, everyone was praying for the rain to stay away.

Looking for bargains

People came, purchased items and went. We had a few near misses when gusts of wind swept through the Bougainvillaea Apartments, blowing jumble onto the floor, and it did rain - but for a only a minutes. Apart from that, the weather was good and the sale went well.

It took two and a half weeks to organize and a great deal of hard work from volunteers. The jumble sale made 1,377.20 Euro, all of which went to the charity.