Bates College sale offers bargains, raises funds

LEWISTON – The Bates College annual Clean Sweep sale delighted bargain-hunters over the weekend and raised money for grateful nonprofits.

“The line wrapped around to Campus Avenue,” said Bates environmental coordinator Julie Rosenbach, who oversaw the event.

“The money goes to nonprofits. They staff it – volunteer for it – and all the money goes back to the organizations according to how much work they put in,” Rosenbach said.

The collegewide yard sale offered nearly everything a college student might leave in the dorm at the end of the school year – tables, chairs, refrigerators, microwaves, heaps of clothing, textbooks, magazines, curtains, pots and pans, shoes.

“I saw jackets out here this morning that would go for $400 at L.L. Bean,” said Marcel Chasse, a volunteer with Our Lady of the Rosary in Sabattus. “They were selling for $10, $15. Oh, it was unbelievable.”

Sandy Levasseur sat on her Old Orchard Beach camp porch Saturday night, describing her new, extra thick, silver futon for the Sun Journal newspaper of Lewiston.

“This one here is 4 inches thick – that’s why I ran. That’s what I came for.”

The Lewiston woman, who was second in line Saturday morning, has gone six of the seven years the sale has been running, and she and a friend try to get there early.

“She [Levasseur’s friend] was there at 5:30, and I was there about 5:40,” she told the newspaper. “I had to stop for Dunkin’s.”

The sale started at 8 a.m.

“I got a cupboard for the porch, some throw rugs, a couple books to read, a lamp, a shelving unit, towels, office supplies, coffee cups to drink out of,” she said.

“Everything was pretty cheaply marked. I think I spent a total of $80.”

There was more.

“I found curtains, really nice curtains,” she said. “Whoever had them had just had them cleaned.”

Her friend had come looking for a refrigerator, and there were 15 or so when the sale started.

“They were gone in five to 10 minutes,” she said.