One person’s trash is another’s treasure

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One person’s trash could be treasure to the Clinton-Massie High School football team.

The spring cleaning rummage sale, as head coach Dan McSurley called it, will begin this weekend and with the help of Caesar Creek Flea Market and We Help Others Your Community Store, it will be a fund-raiser for the Falcons football team.

“The whole idea is if people want help moving stuff, if people have stuff to donate … anything you would donate, we’ll show up with a crew and clean it out,” said McSurley. “Our football team is going to go out and if grandpa, grandma, aunts, uncles, cousins, whoever wants stuff removed from their garage or wherever, that’s what our football team will do.”

McSurley said the process will begin this weekend but the football team will have items at Your Community Store at the flea market year round.

Darrell Petrey is a 1998 graduate of Clinton-Massie High School. Petry, along with 1995 CM graduate Mark Hackney, co-founded We Help Others and Your Community Store. Petrey is the lead treasure hunter.

Distribution bins for small, non-breakable items will be at several locations in the area. Bins will be located at the 73 Grill, the Corner Market in Clarksville and at the flea market.

The Clinton-Massie football trailer will be located in the school parking lot for larger items. All of these locations are available for people to drop off small items.

Items also can be delivered to Caesar Creek Flea Market on Saturdays or Sundays from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Ask for assistance in Aisle 2, Petrey said.

McSurley said the clean-up crews are able to go anywhere in the area to gather items for donation.

McSurley said anyone interested in having items picked up can call him (937-728-5407). Also anyone interested in donating items can call 513-433-3550 or email Petrey at the following: [email protected].

Clinton-Massie football coaches Jeskee Zantene (front left), Dan McSurley (front left) and Scott Rolf (front right) and the football program received a check from We Help Others, the parent company of Your Community Store. Holding the check are Darrell Petrey, left, of We Help Others and Al Bell, right, of the Caesar Creek Flea Market.
https://www.wnewsj.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/22/2019/04/web1_CM_football2-1.jpgClinton-Massie football coaches Jeskee Zantene (front left), Dan McSurley (front left) and Scott Rolf (front right) and the football program received a check from We Help Others, the parent company of Your Community Store. Holding the check are Darrell Petrey, left, of We Help Others and Al Bell, right, of the Caesar Creek Flea Market. Courtesy Photo
We Help Others a unique way to raise funds

By Mark Huber

[email protected]

A new way to fund-raise

Though Clinton-Massie’s football team is the first school organization to take advantage of this Your Community fundraising, Darrell Petrey said this ideal is open to any group.

“Instead of selling cookie dough, candy bars and overpriced products, students can now collect re-sellable unwanted stuff to earn money,” said Petrey who runs We Help Others organization. “We then tag and price it for each participating individual organization. Each time we sell an item it creates a local opportunity, a job for a local family or student. It creates a new way a local student can earn money for their cause and a new way for a local donor to donate their stuff. Finally, a way to utilize, localize and personalize our communities non-cash donations.”

Petrey said the unwanted marketable items can be turned in to revenue for students and their organizations with a little “treasure hunting.”

The donated items, whether collected or dropped off, then go to the Your Community Store at the flea market.

”When an collected item sells, 50 percent of the profit goes back to the participant’s organization and the other 50 percent goes to help create jobs for local families and students,” Petrey said. “All fundraising participants must do to earn money is locate supporters who have stuff to get rid of. Those items are then collected and then run through our process. Once we get items in, we do all the work that it takes to make the sale – evaluating, cleaning, sorting, listing, and shipping.”

Petrey said any organization can take part in the Your Community Store process. For instance, Petrey said, Girl Scouts can pick up items when they drop off their cookies.

”In this situation, cookies will be dropped off, stuff will be collected, more money will be earned, a life is decluttered and success of school fundraising is increased,” Petrey said.

Some would equate the process to a rummage sale and Petrey agrees but says the Your Community Store takes things a step or two further.

“From our studies, we have learned that rummage sales do work on an independent level,” he said. “(A) problem with traditional rummage sales is that the people who volunteer to run the sale have to go back to their 9-5 job on Monday. Therefore, the sale ends after 2-3 days and the unsold stuff is usually given to another charity or thrown away. This happens at almost all rummage sales that I have seen. The group never maximizes the complete value from the donated goods. This is where our process helps. An item could sell today or six months from now, it doesn’t matter. The select group will still receive proceeds from the sale of that item.”

In addition to the storefront at the flea market, Petrey said sales are made on Facebook, eBay, EBTH, and other online platforms.

“We have become very good at getting the right items to the right platform,” he said.

Petrey can be contacted via email at: [email protected].

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