A Sale with a social focus

Sustainability exercises can scream their heads off. A typical case: massive bio-mining machinery massed up at a landfill to segregate and process legacy waste. You can tell what is going on from a mile away.

Sustainability exercises can also speak in soft tones, the message gently dropped into an ear here and another there. A typical case: a guild of volunteers sharing a club affiliation squirrelling away preloved items (that have turned white elephants to their owners) and, finally, quietly placing them in fresh pairs of hands. In rare instances, the whispered syllables of this unobtrusive initiative would multiply and assume the intensity of a scream.

Hold that idea in the crook of your palm and flesh it out with a name, an address, a date, people on both sides of the poverty line, wants and needs, and add a snippet of a back story to it, and the picture is inviting. On January 5, Thillayadi Valliammai Madhar Sangam would have dusted off a vast collection of items, painfully accumulateed over months knocking on many doors, and line them up for a sale, a Jumble Sale. In a zeitgeisty twist to the Robinhood legend, this sale would declutter the lives of the haves and fill those of the have-nots with essential items, creating a win-win situation. These volunteers are ruling out the alternative for these pre-owned items: slipping into the maw of a landfill. Initiatives of this kind might be moving inchmeal, their results hard to see, let alone quantify, but their significance cannot be pooh-poohed: they reduce landfills even before they are formed.

It is the third edition of the Jumble Sale by Thillaiyadi Valliammai Madhar Sangam, a ladies club with geographical coordinates in Valmiki Nagar, Thiruvanmiyur, but an ideological bent that makes it free-ranging.

Jayanthi Premchander, a member of this ladies club and one of the masterminds behind the Jumble Sale, explains how, between the first and the third edition, the initiative has grown in stature and reach and acquired something approaching a scream.

In its second edition, when the sale was scheduled to start at 2 p.m., the crowd had already begun to form by 1:30 p.m., eagerly standing outside like a tide waiting to crest.

“We were all a bit anxious,” Jayanthi recalls with a chuckle. “We had no idea that so many people would show up. It was like a floodgate opening!”

That crowd signalled the transformation of What began as a modest attempt to declutter a few homes into a full-fledged community tradition, one that attracts families from near and far.

What to expect from the Jumble Sale?

It is the kind of event where pre-loved clothes, well-worn toys, and gently used household goods, including furniture, find a new home. It plants on the faces of donors the warm glow of knowing their discarded treasures will be cherished once more, and places within easy reach of the underprivileged items they would think multiple times before buying spanking new off the shelves of a showroom.

The cost factor

It close to free, not entirely free — a sale presupposes transfer of currency, but the figures are on the lower side.

The pricing is as accessible as it gets: 20, 50, and 100 rupees. And, of course, there are those irresistible 10 rupee items — things that may not have much value in the commercial market but are worth their weight in gold for the right person.

“We keep it simple,” says Jayanthi, “100 for the really great items, and then we have categories for 50, 20, and even 10 rupees.” All the three editions of the Jumble Sale put together, the maximum price for an item stays pegged at ₹500. A mini fridge went for that price in the second edition.

Each item is meticulously categorised and sorted into boxes. As these items are received from donor hands, there is no telling what would make it to the “marketplace” until they do. Some items would not “fit” into those boxes.

If a high-ticket item, something based on electronics and of intricate working comes through, the price may be adjusted, but the philosophy remains: keep it affordable, keep it real. Well-maintained furniture can also fall outside the boxes.

“The pricing is part of the charm,” Jayanthi says. “No one leaves empty-handed. It is about making sure everyone can find something that fits both their budget and their heart.”

The jumble sale is a day’s affair, spanning just hours — but considerable forethought goes into how those hours are orchestrated, the preparation beginning months before the event. Since its second edition, the Jumble Sale has a time table set in stone.

Planning for this Jumble Sale kicks off as early as September. By October, the collection of items starts in earnest. “We begin gathering things from all around — neighbours, friends, and even acquaintances and rank strangers who just want to declutter before the New Year,” says Jayanthi. By January, everything is carefully sorted and ready to go, thanks to the dedication of the volunteers who meticulously prepare the sale. It is no small feat, but the team’s commitment is evident in every detail. The Sangam has 43 members and it would be all hand on deck when the Sale is in the works. The efforts are steered by a core group which includes the president (Rama), Secretary (Lalitha) and Treasurer (Vaidehi).

Even unsold items end up finding their unique purposes. They are donated to local charities, ensuring that nothing goes to waste and everything finds its place, a place of utility. The funds raised from the sale are channeled into environmental and community projects, creating a positive ripple effect that stretches far beyond the day of the sale. “In that sense, the sale keeps giving, even after it is over,” remarks Jayanthi.

The Jumble Sale is made known largely by word of mouth. “We make a poster, and then every member of the ladies’ club is on a mission,” says Jayanthi. “We tell everyone — our housekeepers, the drivers, security, the local vendors. The message just keeps spreading.”

In the digital age, word-of-mouth communication has an extended meaning. It is about loosely framed information getting circulated in social media. By the time the Sale starts, the digital poster is a “tattered sheet” having gone through a wringer of forwarding on social media. Sustainability circles present on social media serve as repeater stations amplifying the message to those near and far.

This approach ensures that the sale’s reach extends far beyond the immediate neighbourhood, drawing people from various corners of the metro. Some even make it a point to tell their friends and family to participate in the sale as a donor or a buyer, even if they are themselves miles away. A forward button on the poster shared in social media does the trick. It is as though the Jumble Sale has become a whispered secret passed along from one person to the next. Jayanthi says the buyers largely come from the fisherman hamlets nearby — lining the Kottivakkam, Pallavakkm and Neelangarai coast. The donors come from everywhere, even from neighbourhoods as distant as Egmore, Nungambakkam and Anna Nagar.

A philosophical underpinning

“We often treat waste as if it were the final chapter, but this sale proves that even the most forgotten things can have a new beginning,” says Jayanthi and notes that the Sale is underpinned by the 3Rs philosophy reuse, recycle and repurpose. “This is not just about shifting used items from one hand to another,” she muses. “It is about transforming how we see the things we hold dear and the things we toss aside.”

Jayanthi says the Jumble Sale sends out a message and an invitation. In a world where fast fashion and disposable goods reign supreme, it is an invitation to rediscover the true value of the things we already own. Jayanthi sums it up thus: we underestimate the value of what we have, and when it loses its relevance in our lives, what it can mean to others.

The origins of the Jumble Sale

In 2022, the committee at the helm of affairs at Thillayadi Valliammai Madhar Sangam were brainstorming over organising a sale (possibly, a garage sale) that would help residents of Valmiki Nagar find a fair price for their used goods. They backtracked on the idea when it became clear that such an initiative would cannibalise on an existing one, something that was running like a well-oiled machine. It was “Marketplace”, established under the Sangam’s entrepreneurship wing, which allowed members to sell even items as expensive as used smartphones. They decided a sale with a social focus would be a better idea, and thus was born the Jumble Sale on 2 April, 2023, with the now well-entrenched philosophy of decluttering the homes of the haves and filling those of the have-nots with essential items.

The second edition of the Sale took place on 7 January, 2024.

A dedicated space

Thillaiyadi Valliammai Madhar Sangam operates from a dedicated room in what is called “Valmiki Nagar club area” was earmarked as a community space when plots were established and the locality was born decades ago.

The Sangam is focussed on women’s activities and charitable initiatives.

This space was established by Justice Balakrishna as part of the community’s development plan to empower women; a space where regular gatherings could be held by the ladies club to plan activities for the larger good.

Among the notable activities the space witnesses are: Hosting Entrepreneur’s Day to support local entrepreneurs such as bakers and artisans in Valmiki Nagar; organizing charitable events, including distribution of funds and materials to various organisations; conducting meet-and-greet events with Urbaser community members, accompanied by gift distributions; and organising Christmas and Navratri celebrations to bring the community together.