BETHLEHEM, Pa. — Some hid from the blazing sun under personal umbrellas as they waited to pay for their bargain finds early Saturday in south Bethlehem.
Others wished they could.
Just over an hour into the 27th Lehigh Great South Side Sale, hundreds of shoppers stood in a line — in 80-degree heat under a bright blue sky — that stretched the perimeter of the football field at Broughal Middle School.
“It’s a way to find good clothes and not spend an arm and a leg.”Mallory Hall of Bethlehem
“It’s moving fast though,” one shopper reassured another.
Still, many shoppers plopped themselves in the area outside the field’s edges, shaded by the high concrete wall bordering the field, reviewing their purchases, perhaps rationalizing why they had to have them.
Novelty red lobster flip-flops and a squishy, tan, velvet Kawaii bear body pillow were part of the haul that Mallory Hall waited criss-crossed in the shade to buy.
At a dollar each, whatever they originally sold for, they were a steal.
But the $285 designer raincoat she’d found in the high-end merchandise section, tags still attached, selling for just $5, and an expensive shirt reduced from $85 to just $2 were her most prized bargains of the day.
“It’s a way to find good clothes and not spend an arm and a leg,” Hall, of Bethlehem, said. She brought friend Brady Katynski along. Hall’s father is a Lehigh employee.
'Shop with dignity'
The sale, anchored by Lehigh University’s Community Service Office, or CSO, is an effort whose preparation is a month-long effort, said Tracey King, assistant vice president of external affairs for Lehigh.
“The concept,” King said, “is to allow the community to shop with dignity. Everything is below thrift store prices, on average, a dollar each. Every year, we ask the students to donate what they don’t need.
“Proceeds go to our community schools — Broughal and Donnegan and Fountain Hill elementary schools — and anything remaining goes to community organizations to help them advance in their missions.”
The Lehigh Valley Community School Network is an initiative of United Way of the Greater Lehigh Valley. It supports student success in the region’s highest-need schools by removing barriers to education, so students, families and communities can thrive, according to the United Way website.
Each school is staffed by a full-time community school coordinator who addresses basic needs, promotes family engagement, builds partnerships and coordinates services.
Kim Carrell-Smith, visiting assistant professor of political science and former director of the community fellows graduate program at Lehigh, said throughout May, probably at least 100 volunteers helped produce the sale.
“And we have five hours to make our goal, which is to meet or exceed the year before,” she said Saturday, of the $25,000 that last year’s sale brought in.
Two full days to move items out
In the first hour, more than $7,500 had been counted by Carolina Hernandez, CSO director and associate director of Lehigh’s Center for Community Engagement.
“The first year of the sale it was held in someone’s garage in south Bethlehem, and I think it made $25," Hernandez said.
"In 2001, we had maybe eight tables in the parking lot at St. John's [church, now closed] and we thought that we were such a big deal."
On Saturday, things looked a little different. An enormous 200-foot-by-40-foot white tent protected three long, doubled rows of brown tables holding mounds of clothing that shoppers turned over and over trying to find their size.
Cleaning supplies alone from this year’s student housing cleanout filled two vans. The stash was delivered to the Boys and Girls Club of Bethlehem.
Even leftover items like shampoos and soaps, they go to the homeless shelters. Nothing is overlooked or thrown away if it’s still of use somewhere.Kim Carrell-Smith, former director of Lehigh's Community Fellows graduate program.
“Especially now for their summer programs coming up, post-COVID especially, that’s much-needed thing,” Carrell-Smith said.
Food items collected went to the Fountain Hill Elementary School food pantry, which Lehigh runs.
“Even leftover items like shampoos and soaps, they go to the homeless shelters," Carrell-Smith said. "Nothing is overlooked or thrown away if it’s still of use somewhere.”
It took two full days to move items out.
Alumni return to pay it forward
The sale is run solely by the CSO, and that group’s alumni like 2019 grad Anuroop Alberts return yearly to pitch in. Alberts is now a data specialist for a community food bank in New Jersey.
He and others helped in the furniture and rugs section moving bulky items into shoppers’ vehicles. Carrell-Smith’s husband was part of the team and headed out to pick up a truck to help someone move her load of oversized bargains.
“We’re going to build a mud kitchen for the kids to play in,” said Julia Gan, as her three children, ages 5, 3 and 1, sipped cool drinks and sat in the grass nearby.
Unbreakable kitchen tools and a variety of organizers filled the teal blue wagon that Julia Gan and husband Stephen brought along.
“We’re also going to home-school,” she said of the three-ringed binders wedged into the wagon. The family had been waiting in the line for a half-hour to pay for their selections.
Hernandez expected to have the total raised for today’s sale by 6 p.m.
