Local churches join forces for community yard sale
Rachelle Nordine, Noah Allen and Bev Smith. The three represent churches participating in the community yard sale.
Since St. John’s United Church of Christ in Dover renovated the former retail building the congregation owns next door, Fourth & Faith Outreach Center has fulfilled its promise of becoming a community center of activity.
The congregation is joining forces with six others in the area to present a church yard sale May 6 from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Each of the churches will offer items for sale contributed by members and friends at their location with scavenger hunts, prizes and tours of each church building. Money raised from the event will be used to further each congregation’s efforts to help those it serves who are in need.
“At St. Johns, we were talking about what we could do to help the community,” said Bev Smith of that church, an organizer of the yard sale event. “We thought we could help with food, clothing, gas cards and things like that. We thought about people clearing out their garages and basements, cleaning things out, and came up with the idea of a community yard sale.”
After reaching out to every congregation she could find in the Dover area, Smith found seven to participate. “Four are going to do the sale, and three generously offered to provide money toward the yard sale expenses,” she said. “We will be hiding a cross within the merchandise at each location. Be sure to look for those, as each can be redeemed for a $100 gift card to either Buehler’s or Giant Eagle.” After shopping, you can come to Fourth & Faith Outreach Center for a lunch and to pick up gift cards.
Participating churches include Burning River Church at 420 W. 3rd, Dover Alliance Church at 228 E. 3rd who are donating $100 in place of participating, Dover Faith United Church at 420 N. Wooster Ave., First Baptist Church at 140 Regent St., New Life Church of God at 115 South Ave., St. Mark A.M.E. Zion Church at 408 Broad Street, who are also donating $100, and St. Johns UCC at 409 N. Wooster.
“The money we make at each church,” said Smith, “will be given to families in need. This is why we are doing this as a tour, individually, as each church knows who in their congregation family is in need of help with food or clothing or gas cards.”
“We’ll be able to give gift cards to Kohl’s or Marshall’s or anywhere people in need of clothing can go,” said Rachelle Nordine, pastor at Faith United Methodist. “Over the years, we get to know people and we kind of know who needs the help and we think this is a good way to do that.”
Smith said if this year’s effort works out well, she expects more participation in future years.
Tours of each church will be offered, and many are longtime congregations with deep roots in the area, such as St. Johns, while others are more recently founded, like Burning River, where Noah Allen is pastor. The congregation meets at the former Buehler’s building in Downtown Dover, which the congregation has been slowly renovating. “We have a lot of things there to contribute to a yard sale,” said Allen, “as we’ve found during expansions that people have left things behind. This will be a good way to clear some space for us while doing good for the community.”
Lunch will be served from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Fourth & Faith Outreach Center, 401 N. Wooster Ave. in Dover.