Each year Hospice of Haines puts on a massive rummage sale as a way to clean out attics, basements, and garages while raising funds for the nonprofit that helps people at the end of their lives. In years past it’s been large enough to host at the Southeast Alaska State Fairgrounds, but in 2020 and 2021 it hasn’t happened due to the pandemic. The event is back but will be different this year. 

Hospice of Haines is a mostly volunteer organization that helps community members deal with end-of-life circumstances and also helps survivors during the grieving process.

But that’s only a fraction of what the organization does. It also helps out community elders by checking in on them, helping them get their mail, or simply taking people out for walks when the weather allows. Hospice board member Heather Lende says that the volunteers recently hatched an idea for a decentralized fundraiser that wouldn’t involve crowds of people.

“We thought, well, people are missing rummage sales and it’s spring and everybody still needs to clean out their stuff or share what they have; some treasure that they’ve had enough of, that somebody else might want. And so we kind of brainstormed as a board and said well, what about if we just have rummage sales, and if people want to donate some of the proceeds to Hospice (or all of them) they can,” said Lende.

The Rummage sale is typically the nonprofit’s largest fundraising event of the year, often raising around half its operating budget.  The idea of individuals hosting smaller sales, then donating the proceeds, isn’t new to the organization.

“We’ve had supporters of hospice in the past who have put out rummage sale tables, and then, you know, not just in Haines, but even as far south as Arizona.  Some people that traveled there in the winter, have held rummage sales and then given us the proceeds. And we thought, well, why not just see if people want to do that,” said Lende.

And they do. 

Lende said that sometimes there are some unique treasures to be found.

“Our most famous valuable in recent years was a really fancy bottle of cognac. We ended up selling it privately for thousands of dollars. Actually, that was in a donation from the estate of Lucy Harrell. It was a fancy bottle that we looked in the basket and went ‘Hey, luckily we didn’t open it.’ So that was a big surprise.”Eighteen different rummage sales are happening as part of the event on Saturday, April 24, and more are expected on May 1 as well. There is information with those locations available on the Hospice of Haines Facebook page and in the Chilkat Valley News.