Rusty Mammoth sale a success — outdoors
JOEL MARTIN | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 4 years, 1 month AGO
Joel Martin has been with the Columbia Basin Herald for more than 25 years in a variety of roles and is the most-tenured employee in the building. Martin is a married father of eight and enjoys spending time with his children and his wife, Christina. He is passionate about the paper’s mission of informing the people of the Columbia Basin because he knows it is important to record the history of the communities the publication serves. | September 30, 2020 1:00 AM
MOSES LAKE — It was a windy day, but that didn’t deter the folks who came out to the Moses Lake Museum & Art Center’s Rusty Mammoth sale on Saturday.
“It went really well,” said Dolly Boyd, the museum’s director. “We broke a fundraising record. We beat our previous fundraising total by a couple of hundred bucks,” bringing in about $3,000. “So we’re happy with that, especially since it was just one day.”
The staff wasn’t sure how many people turned up, but Boyd estimated about 200.
The museum staff had to get a little creative this year, with COVID-19 restrictions making any kind of public event difficult. This is the third year the museum has held the sale, and in the past it’s been a three-day affair held inside the museum. Holding it outside made social distancing more feasible, and also had some other advantages.
“I think having it outside was really good, because people driving by could see it was happening,” said Boyd.
“It was a little breezy,” she added. “We had to think about how we could anchor things down, and some things did get broken.”
The items for the sale were donated mostly by members of the museum, with a few coming from members of the community at large, Boyd said. Offerings included original art, photographs, glassware and pottery, handmade linens and vintage clothing and tableware.
Eileen Angier, of Othello, was one of the people impressed with the miscellany on display.
“There’s lots of interesting things,” she said. “My home is pretty much done, but the hand-sewn items are beautiful. And some of the paintings are amazing.”
Nearby, the museum’s artistic director, Erika Kovalenko, stood browsing through some paintings. “The staff has been buying things too,” she said. “We had a really busy day. We opened at 8, but we had people here at 7:30.”
“We sold some rare books,” said Boyd. “There was some early interest in that. We sold a lot of glassware, pottery. A lot of people donated masks from different cultures around the world, and those were a big seller. We had some camera equipment, old vintage cameras. There was just a wide range of things.”
“We kept a few things,” she added, “and everything else we donated on to the senior center. So if you found a treasure here and you didn’t buy it, you might check the senior center and see if it wound up there.”
The money raised will go to the museum’s Family and Education fund, which fuels programs like Free Family Saturday that are still going on, albeit in modified form, in spite of the coronavirus.
“And we’re doing online things, so we’ve purchased some better recording equipment so we can do better-quality videos,” said Boyd. “People don’t know, I guess, all the preparation and the unseen costs that go into programs like this. We need the proper equipment and publicity, and that costs money. So there’s a lot that goes into it besides just glue sticks and construction paper.”
Next year’s sale will also be held in September, she said, and may be held outside again, since that proved successful this year.
“We’re really thankful to everyone who donated and everyone who came out and purchased,” she said. “And if they missed it this year, they’ll know it’s happening next year.”
