Sale
will benefit 8 AIDS hospices
Five households full of
belonging will be sold on Sunday. Buyers can expect to see lots of tools.
SIGNAL HILL—If you find Ken McKenzie refusing to bargain down at his
five-estate sidewalk sale Sunday, just remember, it’s for a good cause.
Eight Long Beach area AIDS hospices will divvy up the proceeds from the 8am to noon sale, at which five house holds full of belongings will be sold.
It’s
the second year McKenzie, owner of McKenzie Cremation & Burial services in
Signal Hill, has agreed to store, then sell household goods for the families
who just couldn’t face the daunting job of disposing of the personal effects
of a family member who died.
Last year two families, both of whom lived out of state, asked McKenzie to help them clear out their dead relatives’ Long Beach homes. He agreed on condition that he be allowed to sell the items, then donate the proceeds to AIDS hospices.
Into a truck, then to a storage shed went two households full of stuff—everything from unwanted family photos to hair gel and fur coats. On sale day the items covered the sidewalk in front of McKenzie’s funeral offices at 2870 Orange Avenue for nearly a block. Six Long Beach hospices each received slightly more than $600 as a result of the sale.
This year, McKenzie has five households full of belongings—clothes, furniture, large appliances, kitchen supplies, garden tools, power tools, VCRs and records. Tools, he said, are very big this year.
“You know how normally he wife drags the husband to yard sales?” he joked. “Well, this year, the husbands will be dragging the wives. We have logs of power tools, including two table saws.”
He said he considers the sale a way to “give back something to the community. I’ve had a lot of community support since going into business for myself two years ago. I want to share that.”
AIDS hospices,
he said, receive minimal state funding for each patient they house. Without
private funding and independent fund-raisers, they would have to close. Items
that aren’t sold Sunday will be donated to the AIDS Assistance Thrift
Store and Purple Heart Veterans in Long Beach.
