A Community Comes Together

The Venetian Village Neighborhood Yard Sale will be TWENTY YEARS OLD in 2008!
We will sell for 2007 and 2008, then call it "done" as we retire the sale at TWENTY years. We're all just getting too tired and too old for this!

Once again, the quiet neighborhood on the north end will host its annual neighborhood yard sale event--Friday and Saturday, July 27 & 28, 2007 (8 to 4 pm rain or shine). This sale, known as The Venetian Village Neighborhood Yard Sale, has attracted thousands of buyers. Each year since 1995, the sale has hosted at least 70 separate yard sales within the small five-block neighborhood. The area of the sale is bounded by Hancock Avenue on the west, Templeton Gap Road on the east, Columbine Boulevard on the south and Hollyhock Drive on the north. (The "flower" streets and T Gap.) We have also invited our neighbors to the north on Sausalito and 4th streets to join us.

This sales event has grown steadily each year. Event founder, Stella Lively says, "This sale is a great way to get to know and visit with others in the neighborhood, and it doesn't hurt to help clean out our houses!"

Once the city closed off this stretch of Templeton Gap as a major thoroughfare (the two blocks north of Fillmore), it became the ideal venue for a closeknit neighborhood event. In fact, this neighborhood, seems to have a low turnover rate in residents. Most of these neighbors are the same families that were there 30 and 40 years ago. Many of the adult children (and their children) return to participate in the sales in their childhood neighborhood. It's like a neighborhood reunion!

Many sale attendees are repeat visitors from past sales. One unidentified attendee reported, "I always look forward to this sale every year, but I never know when it is! The mailman came into my beauty shop this morning and told me that 'that big sale' was going on right now. So, I closed up my shop and got right over here!"

We spoke with several attendees who are from out-of-state and plan their vacation trips to see family in Colorado Springs each year around this event! The local news affiliates often run live remotes or reports from the event reporting how this sale has become a novel tourist attraction.

Shoppers at the recent sales listed the towns, states and countries where they were visiting from... Here is PART of the list they have provided:

Phoenix, Salina/KS, League City/TX, Illinois, Lancaster/PA, Jefferson City/MO, Pen Argyl/PA, Ft Worth/TX, San Jose/CA, Rio Rico/AZ, Virginia Beach/VA, Lafayette/CO, Amarillo/TX, Albuquerque/NM, Taos/NM, Arroyohondo/NM, Penrose/CO, Rock Springs/WY, Ft Meyers/FLA, Portland/OR, Provance/France, North Iraq, Germany, Checotah/OK, Monument/CO, Lake Charles/LA, Tupelo/MISS, Mississippi, Garden City/KS, Red Lodge/MT, Gig Harbor/WA, Canon City/CO, Lancaster/WI, Caldwell/NJ, Philadelphia/PA, Nebraska, Lakewood/CO, Midlothian/TX, Bronx/NY, Montrose/CO, and The Ukraine !!!

We had two ladies from Albuquerque (6 hours by car) who drove up just for the sale, not knowing anyone in town. The same was true of a lady from Montrose, Colorado (about 4 hours by car).

One of the most charming aspects of a neighborhood event like this is meeting and conversing with new people. Many people attend sales like this for the friendly conversation and stroll along our tree-lined streets, as well as the deals. Not to mention that this neighborhood is level with no hills to traverse! This sort of event has become a throw back to the days when a friendly chat from your front porch was the everyday way of life.

The 2000 sale gave us a charming true story of a wedding dress that found its way home.

The Wedding Dress That Found Its Owner

A few years ago, my neighbor, Virginia, who sells each year at our sale bought a beautiful wedding dress at a yard sale downtown -- for only $5. Virginia had planned to cut up the dress to make play dressup gowns for her grandaughters. She would get the dress out, but she just never had the heart to cut it up.

They decided to display the gown on a dressmaker's form at the 1999 neighborhood yard sale to see if they had any takers on buying it. The gown never sold, in spite of being featured on the in news stories about the sale that year.

The 2000 neighborhood yard sale began on Friday and the gown had been forgotten in the basement. Early Saturday morning, one of the adult daughters remembered the gown and told her mom they should get it out and display it again. So, late on Saturday morning the dress came back out and was displayed on the lawn again.

Here is the rest of the story, as told to me via email, by the original seller (Diana) of the wedding dress...

"A few years ago I sold my wedding dress at a garage sale. Some of my 5 daughters were disappointed. When my mother died and I got her wedding dress, I found out what they meant. In 1999 I saw the newspaper coverage and recognized my dress but I felt it was too late. This year I went to the garage sale on Friday but didn't get finished so went back the second day. Low and behold, there was my wedding dress! (It wasn't even out the first day.) I went home got my wedding pictures to make sure, told the vendor my tale, and bought the dress for the amount I sold it for years before."

Yes, Virginia was touched by the lucky coincidence and was more than happy to sell it back to Diana for the price she sold it for years before. Yes, you can find everything here, maybe even stuff you used to own!

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Of course, I have a theory... There is only a finite amount of "stuff" in the universe. It just moves from house to house. Sometimes it stays for 3-10 years until the owner decides to finally clean out the garage. But then it goes back out into the world again via yard sales, thrift stores or kids scavenging in trash cans!

We have a joke in the neighborhood that one of our sale rules is that you have to shop the neighbor's sale to buy back the stuff that you sold to them a few years ago -- afterall, wasn't that part of the original bargain?

Comments overheard from past sales:

"We come every year! We love it." (from many people)

One man from California attends every year. He plans his vacation to see his relatives in Colorado Springs around this sale. He rents a trailer to haul home his goods!

First time sellers are ALWAYS shocked at the crowds. Friday crowds on Templeton Gap sees cars queued awaiting parking. Many sellers make upwards of $400-$500 the first day. Some sellers sell out the first day and end up enjoying the event by strolling around the second day.

From 2004: You haven't seen anything until you have seen five little girls carefully selecting their dream "dress-up" gown from a huge pile of real wedding dresses that were selling for only $3 each! The parade down the sidewalk with their treasure gowns in tow was a delight to behold! It's a shame the newspaper photographer missed THAT shot!

A group of buyers in 1998 were amazed when they saw KRDO (ABC television affiliate) filming the event. An unidentified woman said to the cameraman, "You're filming a yard sale for the news?" The cameraman replied, "Lady, this isn't just any yard sale!"

One seller reports she had business associates in from Arizona for the 2000 sale. These business clients had reworked their mail order catalog production schedule to accomodate this sale. Normally, the catalog production is done in Colorado Springs two weeks before or two weeks after the sale. For 2000 they adjusted the production schedule to be here during the sale dates, so the wife of the catalog client could attend this sale! And this catalog company has a circulation of approximately 280,000! That's how important this sale is to some attendees!