Every year for more than a decade, the Fortuna downtown business association puts on a city-wide yard sale where anyone can purchase a space to have a ‘yard sale’ on main street. This year, the sale will be on Saturday, June 1st from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. and more than 50 sellers have signed up to sell second-hand items. Besides the main action on main street, residents of Fortuna set up additional yard sales at their homes on this day as a way to join in on the festivities.
Emma Coleman, social media manager for the Fortuna Downtown Business Association discussed the event.
“The entire city is full of people doing yard sales where you can just basically spend and entire day yard-saleing,” Coleman said.
Loene Gossett, a yard sale coordinator, also spoke about the sale.
“This is what we do on the first Saturday of June, is we have a citywide yard sale and some people are so far off the beaten path that they want to come to main street and just rent an area to do their own yard sale,” Gossett said. “And then some people stay at home and it’s usually advertised you can go to this place, that place, or you can go as well to main street.”
The annual citywide yard sale brings about several opportunities for locals.
“For one thing, it gives you a chance to empty out your closet, which a lot of us have gathered a lot of stuff that we don’t need anymore,” Gossett said. “This is a great way to take it, give it to somebody else to enjoy.”
“It’s really good for people who live in apartments or maybe live in an area where people aren’t going to drive out to go have a yard sale or just people who want to have a yard sale once a year,” Coleman said.
It’s not just those on the hunt for a deal or those looking to make an easy buck that benefit from the citywide yard sale—small businesses get to see a day of good business as well.
“Providing that sense of community and bringing out community events where people have something to do on a Saturday where they can go out and enjoy something and go shop and maybe stop by a restaurant afterwards, or get a drink or get some froyo,” Coleman said.
“Seeing all the people. it’s always fun,” Gossett said. “If nothing else, you get to talk to people and that’s always fun.”
