WAUCONDA, Ill. — A Lutheran church in Wauconda, Ill., has found a 21st century way to raise money for a new sanctuary — hawking members’ trinkets and tchotchkes on eBay.
The 1,500-member congregation has raised an average of about $400 a month by selling parishioners’ collector plates, books on tape and old postcards through the online auction site.
“I look at things in stores and wonder where all this stuff is going to end up,” Penny Claiborne, who coordinates the bids for the church, told The Lutheran magazine. “Wouldn’t it make God happy if we reused more things? Doesn’t that convey a thankfulness for what God gives us?”
The church’s new sanctuary will help ease overcrowding in a facility designed to hold 240 people that now attracts more than 500. Parishioners have raised $1.5 million for construction, with another $1.7 million to go.
Claiborne said whatever doesn’t sell will be donated to Goodwill, but so far everything offered by church members has found a buyer. Sports magazines from the 1950s went for $30 to $40 each, and old postcards have been sold for between 25 cents and $31.
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