The City of Orillia will promote a city-wide Garage Sale Day on June 15, while encouraging vendors to donate a portion of proceeds to the city’s affordable housing reserve.
Initially brought forward by former Ward 3 councillor Mason Ainsworth, a working group has since determined the idea could be viable, noting dozens of Ontario communities carry out similar initiatives annually.
With numerous potential benefits — such as reducing waste going to the city’s landfill, encouraging upcycling and recycling, contributing to affordable housing, and more — city council approved the idea at its Monday meeting.
“It's not an event. What the city is doing is advertising to the public that anyone is welcome to host a garage sale on that day, and then anyone's welcome to make a donation to affordable housing within the city,” said Coun. Jay Fallis.
“The worst that can happen is really nothing … but the best that can happen is we potentially have a great revenue generation for the city going forward," said Fallis.
“This is a ghost of councillors past, but it was Coun. Ainsworth that actually brought this up many years ago and kind of planted the seed, so I just wanted to give him a shout out for that,” said Coun. David Campbell.
A staff report highlighted a similar initiative in the Glebe neighbourhood in Ottawa, where a community-wide garage sale raises funds for the Ottawa Food Bank.
Vendors are encouraged to donate 10 per cent of proceeds, and the event raised $12,000 for the food bank in 2019, the report stated.
The initiative will take place on the same weekend as the city’s treasure hunt program, with the report noting “it would be convenient for those residents to be able to leave (unsold) items out on the curb for treasure hunters.”
Although it is not a fully city-run event for 2024, with residents organizing their own garage sales for the initiative, the report states that expanding to an event at a central location could be a possibility in future years.
