Annual Oak Point yard sale ‘pays it forward’

MIDDLEBORO — Sitting around a table on a fall day in 1999, some of the first homeowners in the then newly-built Oak Point residential community were getting to know their new neighbors. One of the men at the table told the group they should find a way to pay things forward in the community. 

Another resident suggested a yard sale as a way to raise money. After some “hemming and hawing,” as Jerry Ellis — one of those residents — described it, someone threw $5 on the table and declared the initiative had begun. 

Oak Point has organized a yearly yard sale since then, with the proceeds going toward scholarships for Middleboro high school graduates. 

“The goal was to pay it forward,” Sandra Ellis said. “We have had a full life, came here and created friendships.”

“Our first yard sale was in 2000, our goal was to make $2,000, and we did it. That was pretty awesome,” she added. 

As the event has grown, so have the funds it raises. Last year, it brought in nearly $50,000. It is now a non-profit organization that has donated nearly half a million dollars in scholarships to Middleboro students. 

Current chair John Burbage, who is in his third year of leading organization, said he sometimes meets recipients and their parents out in the community. He said the group also receives letters of appreciation that their secretary posts on the group’s bulletin board. 

“That makes a difference in my life.” Burbage said “We occasionally will hear from kids that have graduated college and gone on to work in the world and express graditude. I think we’re going to see that more and more, because I feel like this thing is a lot more visible in the community.” 

In the first few years, donated items mostly came from Oak Point residents. As the sale expanded, donations began to come first from family and friends of residents and eventually from individuals throughout the town. 

The sale’s reputation grew as well, and it became an anticipated day in Middleboro. Jerry Ellis, who at one point served as the chair of the organizing group, said people would line up early hoping to get in before the sale opened. 

“We opened the doors at 8 o’clock,” he said. “At 7 a.m. people were lined up at our gate.  A couple of guys — the ones who’d take and resell it — were going ‘Come on, let us in.’ As soon as eight o'clock came they were in.”

While the sale only lasts one weekend — it will be open to the public Oct. 4 from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. this year — weeks of preparation go into making it a success. 

The process begins with collecting and storing donated items. Collections are accepted from April until a week before the sale, during which over 100 Oak Point residents start moving donations from storage to the ballroom of the community’s clubhouse. 

Alongside these residents, students from area schools volunteer their time to help set up for the sale. 

Keith Mellow, a senior at Middleboro High School, said he got involved in volunteering through his school’s community service office.

“I took a big leadership role in our school this year,” Mellow said. “I spread the word to get people to come here, and I got work off, so I’m here helping.”

Leadership of the event has changed over the years, and Jerry Ellis and his wife, Sandra Ellis, said each leader brings new ideas. 

They said including students is one of those new ideas, and turnout has increased in the past few years since they began volunteering there. 

She said even though some of the people who founded the annual sale have passed away, leadership is passed down to keep the event going into the future. 

“Each time a person stepped forward to be in charge, new ideas came,” Sandra Ellis said. ”I'm looking around here at the students — the first couple of years they had maybe one or two. Now kids want to do this.”