WHITEWATER REGION (Cobden) — The doors to the Cobden arena opened at 9 a.m. and for the next two hours, there was a steady stream of people entering the Astrolabe Arena to find treasures to take home from The Big Give.
This is the second year in Cobden for this event, that has been happening dating back to 2009 when parishioners at an Ottawa church completed The 40 Days of Community and decided to host a free garage sale. It was easy to do. It went so well, the organizer wanted to see this event occur throughout the city. In 2015, 52 churches across Ottawa joined together and the first Big Give occurred. It has grown since then to 130 churches participating in various cities and towns from coast to coast in Canada, including Cobden.
Susan Gilchrist, who heads the local committee, said it was an awesome day. The five churches from Cobden that participated were: Grace United, Ross Presbyterian, Cobden Pentecostal, St. Paul’s Anglican and Whitewater Wesleyan.
As each person entered onto the floor of the arena, Anne Holmes gave them each a plastic bag to put things into. However, some people used boxes and baskets, carry-alls and re-usable bags.
But, along with stuff to take home – which is the garage sale – there were also services available, such as free haircuts, manicures, card making, a photoboth and prayer area.
The baked goods table still had some goodies when the event shut down at 1 p.m.
There was close to 1,000 hot dogs given away and plenty of juice boxes and bottled water.
“This is a two-way street,” Ms. Gilchrist said. “There is good stuff people don’t want that other people need or want.”
As with any garage sale, there were plenty of items left at the end of the day. Ms. Gilchrist noted there were five organizations, including Value Village and the Salvation Army, that came and picked up the left-over items.
There was also a trailer-load that went to the landfill site, but that also included regular garbage, she added.
There will be a post-event planning meeting to discuss this year’s event and begin planning next year’s event, which is on June 1.
