Junior League ready to deal at sale
By 2 a.m., the line will already snake around the building. A grand opening at Best Buy, perhaps? Not exactly.
And then again, yes. But instead of flocking to their local mall, on Saturday South Bay shoppers will fill the Expo Hall at the Santa Clara County Fairgrounds. There, amid 45,000 square feet of high-end merchandise collected, curated and sold by the Junior League of San Jose, local families will have the chance to outfit themselves and their homes in affordable style.
Drawing roughly 10,000 visitors between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m., the sale offers gently used, quality items, priced well below those offered at the most established secondhand stores.
In what other locale could one find designer handbags, holiday décor, next-to-new golf clubs, furniture, artwork, baby clothes, electronics and more—all for pennies on the dollar? “We basically turn the Expo Hall into a giant Kohl’s department store,” notes Corrine Fabie, current League president and past co-chairwoman of the sale.
By the time the doors open, the Junior League’s 200 active, 40 provisional and 500 sustaining members will have spent a full year gathering, storing and then preparing and presenting the merchandise to be sold.
All items are stored throughout the year in the League’s cavernous storage facility. Then, one week before the sale, the merchandise is loaded on trucks and vans for delivery to the Expo Hall. The arrival of the caravan triggers a weeklong frenzy of activity, says Fabie.
Heather Cressall, who is also serving as event cochairwoman, says the immediate gratification members receive the moment the sale begins more than compensates for any fatigue. A police dispatcher, Cressall cherishes the faceto-face interactions she has with customers at the sale.
“I seldom, if ever, get to the see the results of what I do on my job,” she confides. “To be able to see that you’re making such a huge difference in people’s lives—that maybe they’re able to afford a matching set of dishes for the very first time, or they can finally buy their kid a bicycle, or get a nice suit they need for a job interview—it’s absolutely amazing.”