Stoop Sale Fundraising for the National Get Organized for an ACTUAL Revolution Tour

May 20, 2019 | revcom.us

 

From a reader:

Last weekend, some of us organized a stoop sale in response to the National Get Organized for An ACTUAL Revolution Tour call for fundraising. (Stoops are the stairs outside a house.) We’re counting on this stoop sale to spur you and others like you to raise funds for the national tour.

We would like to make two challenges:

1. Match our $1,000 by Sunday, May 26. Of the $1,349 we raised at the sale, we decided to put $1,000 toward a matching donation to challenge others to contribute and double the funds for the Tour. (The rest of the money will go towards promotion and other expenses.)
2. Organize a garage sale or flea market. Set a goal and raise money to meet the Tour’s May goal of $20,000!

Here’s what we did:

The sale was in a progressive, middle class neighborhood near a farmer’s market—a place with lots of foot traffic.

Initially, we put out a call to people we know to donate items, and in the last two weeks really strived to get a lot of used items to sell. Lots of friends, and friends of friends, donated items. We posted brightly colored flyers in the neighborhood the week before the stoop sale and about 15 shopkeepers let us post the flyer inside and/or outside their stores. Some people baked cookies. We also advertised it on Craig’s List and a couple of neighborhood websites that list stoop sales to get the word out as broadly as possible. The day of the sale, one person went to the farmers’ market on the corner with leaflets to invite people to the stoop sale.

We set up books donated by Revolution Books on half of the stoop and eight tables in the front yard and along the sidewalk packed with donated items: kitchenware, glassware, jewelry, meat grinder (vintage from the 1950s, which sold!), and other small appliances, African masks, children’s toys, clothes, electronics, shoes (including three pairs of tap shoes), hats, knickknacks, plus tons of clothing in boxes and hanging on two clothing racks.

We had a palm card with the Points of Attention for the Revolution, to live by and fight for now, to distribute and they were a great resource. It gave people a doorway through which to learn more about this revolution, and to actually take a step through that door.

The Saturday of the stoop sale was a bright, sunny day. Many people were out and about and came over. Others came from the farmers’ market or from having seen the posters or an online listing. They bought several items or one item. Some paid for items, browsed some more, paid for a second batch of stuff, browsed some more. With each sale, we explained this was fundraising for the Tour and gave them a Points of Attention palm card. At times the sidewalk was blocked with people examining items on each table and picking clothes out of two boxes. There was a general positive attitude toward talking about revolution. People were pleasantly surprised when they realized that this wasn’t a few people doing a moving sale or some individual private thing, but a group of people doing a fundraiser for a tour getting people organized into the revolution, a real revolution. “This is cool!” While there is usually a lot of haggling at stoop sales to lower the price for an item, there was a lot less of it when people understood what this fundraiser was for. One person gave an extra $5, another $10.

Having various political buttons and T-shirts and patches also contributed to “not your ordinary” stoop sale. Some youths were excited about the political T-shirts and a Latino man bought patches in both Spanish and English against the oppression of women.

There were two hip 20-something white women (one called the other to come to the stoop sale for her opinion on clothes and they spent a long time trying things on. Good thing we had a mirror!) She said, “This sounds really interesting... but it’s not some kind of cult is it?” We showed her the POA card, and she asked about the election. She was relentless about “Well, then if not any of these—Bernie or AOC or Warren or ??? who are you voting for?” and was really intrigued by the #BEB broadsheet. She wouldn’t give her contact info but said to her friend, “This is really different and interesting. I’m going to check this out” and promised to go online to view BA film, Why We Need An Actual Revolution And How We Can Really Make Revolution.

A mother with her child checked out every table. She was intrigued by conversations she heard around her about “revolution,” disturbed by the current state of events with Trump/Pence and very upset that even her friends were “afraid to talk” about things, “uncomfortable things,” especially racism. She said that if we don’t talk about it, how are people going to learn and change/grow. She said she speaks up when something happens that she thinks is racist, but that her friends don’t, and don’t think she should either because she is white. She thought that was very wrong and started reading the POAs and was glad to be able to talk.

Our goal was $1,000 for the weekend and we greatly exceeded that.

We have a van full of used items and are going forward. We are looking for another stoop for a second sale, preferably somewhere with another good location and lots of foot traffic. Next time we will reach out more broadly to work with more people new to the revolution. Our experience this time shows that is possible.

We hope our experience will inspire others. So, meet our challenge! Donate toward our $1,000 match by May 26 and turn it into $2,000 for the Tour. Have your own sale to raise even more funds or find other creative ways to raise money and promote the Tour. We pledge to do this as well!