Once upon a time, Renesting hosted a fundraiser called Park-It-Market (PIM). Almost anyone who worked on Park-It-Market is glad it’s been put to bed.

PIM was a garage sale style event held in the parking lot of Asbury Methodist, our old stomping ground. The parking lot would be lined with sellers, the majority of the market’s revenue came from renting spots to vendors. The remaining funds were raised by selling the items Renesting gathered throughout the year.

Park-It-Market may have seemed like a lot of fun, the fun-to-work ratio was extremely weighted to the “work” side. Gathering items involved volunteers discerning items that may or may not have much value and boxing them each week. Those boxes had to go somewhere to wait for the market. They’d be stacked wherever there was space- next to shelves, under tables, on top of and behind furniture. The warehouse would be bursting at the seams between our normal incoming and outgoing furniture/ household items and the boxed items saved for Park-It-Market.

When event time rolled around, the boxes spread across the warehouse would have to be taken down, loaded, and hauled to Asbury. Once onsite, each box had to be unpacked, each item laid out on a table or a blanket, and the boxes stored out of the way of shoppers.

Our volunteers ran the market. They would man cash registers, help shoppers, and tell the Renesting story to whoever listened. When the shopping was all over, any items that didn’t sell would be re-boxed, loaded, and taken back to the Nest.

In short, it was A LOT of work.

The very first market was in October of 2012. In the Spring of 2014, we decided to hold two events, a spring and a fall market. Spring 2018 was the last Park-It-Market. The market events solved a problem that Renesting still has: what to do with items we can’t use for clients, but don’t want to throw away? And so from the ashes of Park-It-Market, the Pop Up Auction was born.

Each of the markets raised between $1,800 and $2,000. While we can never measure the connections that may have been made, the funds raised were not worth the workload of each market. For perspective, the Pop Up Auctions average $1,200 and they happen every month.

Comment below:
Do you miss Park-It-Market? Have you participated in the Pop Up Auction yet?