A sale as big as a barn
Mary Behland of Sandwich was at the head of the line Saturday morning at the Kane County Fairgrounds, waiting for the gate to open for the St. Peter Church Barn Sale.
It was nearly 9 a.m., but Behland and her entourage of teenage daughters and their friends had been waiting since 4:30 a.m. to make sure they got the first shot at all the bargains.
"They want clothes, and I want furniture and anything else I can find," Behland said, noting that her husband would be arriving later with a suitable vehicle for hauling off her furniture purchases.
Thousands of bargain-hunters like Behland fanned out over the fairgrounds as the barn sale, a 30-year tradition for Catholic churches in the Tri-Cities, was hosted for the first time in 10 years by the Geneva parish.
The barn sale continues from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday at the fairgrounds on Randall Road between routes 38 and 64 in St. Charles.
Tara Maertens of Geneva had shopped the barn sale when it was held at Holy Cross Church in Batavia and had learned from the experience.
She arrived early Saturday, and had removed the rear seats from her minivan to make more room for the couches and end tables she planned to buy.
"We've wised up as the years go on," Maertens said.
For Mary Arch of Aurora, it was her first year at the barn sale.
"I've read about it for years, so I decided to find if there is something here that I can't live without," Arch said.
Organizing the barn sale is a year-long endeavor designed to raise money for the parish, and to bring its members closer together while working toward a common goal.
"The volunteers are just fantastic," said St. Peter parishioner Gary Fritz of Geneva, who was selling raffle tickets for the barn sale's new-car drawing, which will be held just before the sale ends today.
"Some of these people have been coming to the barn sale for 30 years," Fritz said, pointing to the huge crowd.
With donated merchandise ranging from clothing and household goods to toys, bicycles, books, records and lawn equipment, shoppers were able to find inexpensive buys.
The event started at St. John Neumann Church in St. Charles, moved to St. Peter after 10 years, and last year completed a decade-long run at Holy Cross.
This year, the merchandise was sheltered in the fairgrounds' exhibition halls, rather than under tents. Yet the entire event was held Saturday under a blue, cloudless sky in cool weather.
"This is really good shopping weather," said barn sale volunteer Dan McGrath of Geneva.
Inside one of the exhibition halls, volunteer Betse Malkowski of Geneva was handling the crush of shoppers who jammed the book and record section of the sale.
Getting ready for the sale was a major project, Malkowski said.
"We've worked hard and met a lot of people and had fun," she said. "I learned how many varieties of books there are when we sorted and categorized them. It's really hard to fathom."