Church of Meriden mixes soup and thrift

The St. Paul Lutheran Church of Meriden held a giant indoor garage sale and homemade soup luncheon fundraiser on Friday and Saturday, April 10 and 11. On opening day they had a line 15 deep out the door, where people waited with anticipation to get in and start shopping.

 

Inside, long tables were covered in goods sorted by their type or season. Some tables had Christmas themes, others had books. There were racks of clothes, hard to find collectable items like a 3-D electronic photo of Christ. There were dolls, jewelry, kitchenware and cutlery, and kitchen electronics. There were baby items, clothes and vintage items.

 

Smelling delicious nearby were vegetable beef and chicken and wild rice soup, accompanied by chips, cookies and coffee. There was a table for dining, but many shoppers seemed to be purchasing theirs to take home. Diane Kath, one of the organizers for the weekend said, “We all had a hand in the making of the soups.” Norma Hoffmaster, who took tickets and money at the door said on Friday, “Things have been going great, we had like 60 people come through our door first thing this morning. In total we had at least 180 people here for the whole day, I hope we get those numbers on Saturday.”

 

Kath shared that half the funds raised by the event are slated to support youth activities at the church; the other half will help with building maintenance or repairs. She commented, “This is a 20-year-old church after all, we’re always fixing something.”