Citywide yard sale organizers prepare scaled-back version

Last year the Scott City Chamber of Commerce got ambitious with its citywide yard sale, trying to pull in nearby Commerce as part of the sale.

But the chamber's outreach met little response.

So in this, the yard sale's third year, organizers have scaled the event back to Scott City and the immediate area surrounding the city limits.

The chamber hopes the sale will bring out Scott City residents and bring in people from out of town to shop at the sales and at local businesses on Friday and Saturday.

City residents will hold sales at their own homes and at two designated sale locations -- the caboose parking lot on Main Street and the Assembly of God Church. At the same time local businesses will offer their own sales.

The chamber of commerce sponsors and promotes the event, but for the most part it's up to individuals and businesses to organize their sales, said chamber member Karen LeDuer, who owns Timeless Treasures Antiques.

Even though the citywide sale is young, LeDuer said the event has been successful the past two years, despite a poor response from Commerce last year.

Like Christmas season

"I have lived here in town most all of my life, and I have never seen as much traffic in this town as what I see that weekend," LeDuer said. "It's just amazing. Dollar General tells us it's like the Christmas season in there."

LeDuer's own business will have a sale to commemorate a recent expansion, purposefully timed with the yard sale.

This year several new businesses in the city are looking to the sale as a way to introduce themselves to the community, LeDuer said.

One of them is the SEMO Antique Mall owned by Marie Mayberry.

Mayberry has owned her store for two months. In the past she might have been a yard-sale shopper, but she said she looks forward to showing off her new business this weekend.

The sale has no set hours, but LeDuer said, as with all yard sales, the shopping will probably begin early.

For more information on the sale, call LeDuer at 263-2525.

msanders@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 182