North Cross School’s Big Flea Charity Event will be held on Saturday, April 5 from 8 a.m. until 2 p.m. in the school’s Carter Athletic Center.

It's the largest of three fundraisers North Cross holds every year to help make it possible for North Cross School to broaden financial assistance to students. The event is so large, in fact, that Maureen Stellato, Director of Annual Giving at North Cross, works with about 100 to 165 volunteers at once.

"In orchestrating the event, once we actually get into the gym, it takes a tremendous amount of volunteers. You have to see it to believe it," Stellato. “I probably work with about 100 to 165 volunteers at one time.”

The volunteers needed to ensure the fundraiser is successful do more than just donate items, Stellato said.

“We have to literally put a price tag on everything,” she said. “People donate their time to sort and set up, they offer us trucks to haul items, bags for the sale, storage units to house the donated items, tins and hangers to hang up the clothes…”

And the list goes on.

Stellato said that about 15 to 18 local businesses in the area offer some sort of donation, while places like Totally Kids donated brand new clothing, RSVP donated new items, and Orvis Store donated leather coats this year, and the community donates everything from furniture to household goods. Monetary donations were also accepted.

“Donations for the most part are just out of the kindness of the North Cross community’s heart.”

About 2,000 people attended the 30 year running event and line up around 5:30 in the morning to be the first in line.

“Dealers in the area know we have really good, quality stuff and other people who are in need know we have quality stuff,” Stellato said.

Jeff Sharpe, Franchise Partner of 1-800-Got-Junk? and a Southwest resident is doing his part to help by donating truck loads of items to the Annual Big Flea Charity Event.

"Number one, our kids go to North Cross, so we are involved as parents," Sharpe said. "Number two, we live in Southwest County and from the community standpoint we thought it was our responsibility to be involved and help out."

1-800-Got-Junk? is a full service junk removal company that donates 65 percent of the items they take, back to the community whether it be North Cross School or other areas in the Roanoke community.

“We just want to make sure we keep stuff out of the landfills, if we can re-use it and donate it, it’s great.”

Sharpe said that this is the first year they have been involved in the event and that they began collecting items and storing them in their facility at the end of January.

“Some of the items we collected in the first load were bicycles, pet and travel containers, general household items, toys, and a matching couch set. We’ve been collecting other items too until the sale this weekend.”

When Sharpe found out that the school was looking for help in transporting items, Sharpe and his company spent half a day with the crew and made seven pick-ups of donated items for North Cross School.

“The satisfaction that we get out of this is that the school does well and they are able to exceed their goals each year and able to give back to their students from a financial standpoint.”

Stellato also pointed out that the items left offer after the sale is complete are donated to Refugee families for free and anything else is given away to those in need.

“We couldn’t do it without the help and volunteers,” Stellato said.

• Share this entry
  • Digg this entry
  • Mark in Ma.gnolia
  • Tag with del.icio.us
  • Seed Newsvine
  • Post to Google
  • Add to Yahoo!
  • Share on Facebook
  • Submit to Reddit
  • Related at Technorati
• Posted by emily flora in EventsEventsEvents
• :: Comments (0)