“Good Seconds” Sale - SI Penang
On July 25th 2010, SI Penang organized a fundraising “GOOD SECONDS” sale. Friends were asked to donate whatever they could not use or did not need. The response was great! We collected tons; from clothing to household articles, including lots of designer items. However, we were not prepared for the shock when we saw the room filled with all sorts of things, jumbled together. We wondered how were we going to go through the hundreds of items?! But, as very determined Soroptimists, we tied up our hair, pulled up our pants, sat on the floor and dived in! Methodically, we sieved through each item by item and separated them into various categories. This tedious task took forever! Pricing of the items brought us so much laughter, as we discussed the tag price for each item. In so doing, items had to be retagged many times. Imagine our relief when all the items were finally priced/tagged, packed and ready to be transported to the hotel. There, we worked from morning to late night, getting everything set up for the next day.
On Sale day, we were there at 9.00 a.m., opened at 10.00 a.m. and closed at 7.00 p.m. It was a good day. We received very positive comments from those who came. They were amazed at the variety of good stuff that was offered at reasonable prices. Some even asked if we were going to have another. Items unsold were packed up and given to another charity organization in Penang, who in turn, used the items to raise funds for themselves, or were given away to the needy.
SIP members were pleasantly surprised as we raised over RM11,000 from the sale. Club members decided that we would split the proceeds from the sale, equally between SIP’s “office” fund and our community service projects. All of the above would not have come to fruit, if not for the generosity, great support and sponsorship from the Management and staff of Paradise Sandy Bay Beach Resort. They provided us with the wonderful venue free of charge, arranged tables and organised changing rooms.
The success of “Good Seconds” was due to dedicated team effort, the kind generosity of SIP sister Karen who willingly provided space to store the items, and our other SIP sister, Lay Ean who provided the lorry and her workers to transport the items to the Hotel. SIP is also grateful to all our friends and our members, who sacrificed their time with their respective families that Sunday, to help with various duties at the Sale.
For all of us who were part of this project, “Good Seconds” gave us more in return than the “blood, sweat and tears” we contributed towards it. Errrrrr…just kidding here, because there was really no blood or tears, just a lot of “sweat”, dust and backache! Seriously though, those of us who worked together on this project are thankful for the closer bond of sisterhood and friendship we developed from being cooped up in that room, for all those long hours, talking, laughing and even “snapping” (because we were tired), whilst we sorted the mountains of items. It was a truly fun and a good learning experience. Hopefully SIP will do it again. Rest assured, the next time around it will be even more fun because we now know how to do it as sisters, working together, for SIP!