Mayhem & Madness

Some of you who've been following my blog for awhile may remember the post that I wrote after I attended my very first consignment sale.  If you haven't read it, check it out before you keep reading!

Awhile back I wrote about the Okinawa Kids Clothing Swap that I have started volunteering at.  Recently, one of the two organizers stepped down to prepare for her upcoming PCS (move) and I stepped into the co-organizer role. This is a volunteer position, but I just love the concept of a kids clothing swap so much that I wanted to help out.  Kids' clothing is just SO CUTE and they wear it for such a short amount of time that most of it is in very good condition.  It just makes sense to me to reuse and recycle the clothing and save people TONS of money in the process!

So I became one of the co-organizers.  There are actually three of us now, and we work together quite well.  Our first swap under the "new leadership" was this past weekend at it was a huge success!  We almost doubled our participation from previous swaps, thanks to the one and only English-speaking radio station on island, which was kind enough to let me do an interview with them (which they replayed over...and over...and over...) and promote our event.  We had 86 people register, 75 people show up to participate, checked in over 2,100 pieces of acceptable clothing, and nearly 1,600 pieces of clothing were taken to a new home :)  Since we (and our volunteers) check each piece of clothing for rips, stains, missing buttons, etc., in a time span of only 2 1/2 hours... well, you can imagine it was sheer madness a little hectic.

It was sort of insanity, actually.

Our room definitely was NOT designed to hold 75 people plus their kids (many in strollers) and, in some case, their spouses, plus all the tables and tables of clothing.  It wasn't quite as bad as the mad-house that was the consignment sale in Virginia, but I can see how it is sort of going in that direction.

And I must say, I am kind of looking forward to it ;)