SP Church Prepares for Massive Garage Sale

Bargain shoppers get ready. A massive garage sale is coming your way.

The Severna Park United Methodist Church will host its mega-garage sale on Saturday. The sale features an abundance of items ranging from books, to clothes, to furniture to exercise equipment.

“We call it a garage sale because it isn’t a typical yard sale where someone comes and buys a table,” said organizer Gwyn Linthicum. “Instead people donate the stuff to the church, and then the organizers of the sale price and organize the items.”

The church hosts the garage sale twice a year, in October and May, and according to Linthicum they started in the '70s. Funds from the garage sale go towards the church’s missionary work.

The church participates in missionary work on a local and national level. Nationally, they have traveled to Tuscaloosa to rebuild homes after a tornado. And locally, the church hosts a winter relief for the homeless and participates in Heaven’s Kitchen, located in Brooklyn Park—just to name a few.

“The garage sale itself is for missions,” Linthicum said. “A majority of the proceeds go to the building projects we send people on. We pay for building supplies and all the things that go into the projects.”

The garage sale is a production for the masses. Linthicum said it takes about 160-180 people to actually do the pricing and organizing of all the items that are brought in for the sale.

“The reason the sale is so successful is our prices are dirt cheap because everything we have has to be gone by 1 p.m. on Saturday,” Linthicum said. “We can’t save it or store it. It has to be gone. We have sold wedding dresses, kitchen sinks, whole dining room sets and more.”

Anyone interested in donating items can take them to Severna Park United Methodist Church during the following three times:

• Wednesday After 7 p.m.
• Thursday between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m.
• Friday between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m.

The sale itself will take place on Saturday from 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. During which, the church will be filled with items. Linthicum said they will have five rooms devoted to clothing, and then rooms for jewelry, toys, games, holiday decorations, electronics, linens, sporting goods, books and more.

“We also have a treasure’s table full of antiques and special items,” Linthicum said. “All the antique dealers rush in and go to that. It has collectables, silver, antique dolls and really anything antique. They come in a mob for that.”

The garage sale will also feature food provided by The United Methodist Women.

“We will have chili-dogs, homemade ham salad, egg salad, and turkey salad sandwiches that are fabulous,” Linthicum said. “We sell out the food really early.”

At the end of the sale, anything that is left over goes to AMVETS, Linthicum said. This year, leftover books are being donated to the American Association of University Women (AAUW).

The garage sale will be held from 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturday at the Severna Park United Methodist Church, which is located at 731 Benfield Rd.