Choosing garage sale neighborhoods
Garage-sale shoppers know that picking the neighborhoods in which you shop is important.
Wealthier neighborhoods produce better stuff, while poorer neighborhoods have cheaper stuff.
Of course, prices tend to be higher in wealthier neighborhoods, so people who have a greater need and less to spend likely will go to the cheaper sales. They just can't afford the good stuff.
The result is that people who really need some good stuff and need it cheap won't get it.
People who can afford to buy the merchandise in retail stores at retail prices shop in the wealthier garage sale neighborhoods, getting a charge out of getting a bargain. The sellers in those neighborhoods really don't need the money they make, but they accumulate it nonetheless.
The whole routine is a little cultural game we play. Imagine the surprise recently when a church in Belvidere held a garage giveaway. The actually gave stuff away rather than selling it, wanting people who actually needed their leftovers to be able to get them.
"Is this really free?" people asked. When assured that it really was free they asked, "Why are you doing this?"
"God's gift of love to us is free; we're just sharing his love in this way," the volunteers replied.
People whose needs weren't very great showed up and took stuff, but there were a lot of needy people helped, too. One woman picked out clothes for her fiancé to wear to a job interview. A man injured in an auto accident found a recliner he needed but couldn't afford. Another woman had been looking for a long time for a particular kind of Bible; she found a copy at the giveaway.
Shoppers also left with a bag in which was placed a religious pamphlet and a homemade loaf of bread. Baking all that bread may have involved more work than planning and presenting the actual garage giveaway.
People shop garage sales for many reasons. For some it's a hobby. For others the thrill of the bargaining game keeps drawing them back. Some buy with the intention of reselling at a higher price. Most, I would guess, just like the satisfaction of having acquired something for a very low price. But there are many people who shop garage sales and thrift stores because they don't have the money to buy goods elsewhere.
A shocking number of people in our society work full-time, or nearly full-time, for wages that still put them below the poverty level.
What is a game for many of us is a search for the basic necessities of life for these people. Jesus talked about people who feed the hungry, provide clothes for those in need, and help the poor in other ways. Then he said: "Inasmuch as you have done this to the least of these, my brothers, you have done it to me."
He once told a rich young man to, "Sell your possessions and give them to the poor, and then come follow me."
The members of that Belvidere church had the right idea. I suspect that had Jesus walked by he would have smiled and said, "Well done, good and faithful servants."