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Community Corner

Beth Bales: 10,000 Shoppers Will Put Sept. 17-18 Barn Sale on the Calendar!

The one-weekend Barn Sale extravaganza returns to the fairgrounds next month after a year of smaller weekend sales. It's a treasure trove of great deals.

These days, who isn’t looking for a great deal? 

Well, there will be good deals and great steals aplenty at the upcoming St. Peter Church's Barn Sale, to be held at the Kane County Fairgrounds (Route 38 and Randall Road) in St. Charles on Saturday and Sunday, Sept. 17 and 18.

The sale is back at the fairgrounds after a one-year hiatus, during which the church held a number of sales on a number of weekends at the Campana building in Batavia.

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Sale co-chair Ron Volk said the fairgrounds site provides a larger area for merchandise displays and wider aisles for shoppers to traverse, not to mention plenty of space for a food court.

And as for the sale itself ... Well, the variety of merchandise is long and deep, from electronics, to antiques, to kitchen items, furniture, housewares, tools, clothing, toys, kids’ stuff fabrics, crafts, bikes and books. And that’s not everything. As co-chair Pam Mucha said, “An easier question to answer would be what one would not find at the .”

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Over the years we’ve picked up a number of fun finds at the . In its earliest incarnation, when the sale was held at the church, and when our kids were still little, I got some great buys on toys, including snagging some Big Wheels (remember those?) for a friend who does day care.

A few years ago, my daughter found a bunch of fun T-shirts, including an old GHS Powder Puff football shirt that belonged to someone we know. That same day we snagged a French-style dressing table she uses as a desk and were triumphant in our search for a matching chair.

Two years ago, I madly snapped pictures of a very nice wooden cabinet perfect for a spot in the kitchen. Sadly, my husband, looking at the pictures determined it was too wide for the space. My oldest daughter moved this past summer to an apartment in Chicago; the sale is on the calendar to find furnishings for her new abode.

Organizers have analyzed the Barn Sale “by the numbers” and determined that the sale includes:

  • 90,000 square feet of inventory
  • 500 volunteers to help make it a success
  • 19 departments offering merchandise
  • 6 co-chairs
  • 30-plus department chairs and co-chairs who organize and manage the 19 departments
  • 4 food vendors
  • 3 primary goals, which are to serve the community, build camaraderie and raise funds to pay down the church debt

And the biggest number of all:

  • 10,000 people who will find great bargains. I hope to be one of them. And you?

Sale hours are 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sept. 17 and from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sept. 18. Breakfast is served beginning an hour before the sale both days. Admission is free. There will be a free-will donation for parking of $1 for each vehicle.

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