CASEY: Women’s education group plans bargain-basement book sale for Saturday | Latest Headlines

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Today we have some excellent news for anyone who enjoys books, and some not-so-superior news for certain younger women of all ages who aspire to greater education. All those are similar, and the fulcrum for each and every is an higher-stage professional area within Tanglewood Shopping mall.

That is where, given that 2010, the Roanoke Valley chapter of the American Association for College Ladies has conducted e-book gross sales and, about the many years, elevated tens of 1000’s for undergraduate and graduate university scholarships for women.

The superior news: The AAUW is keeping a humdinger liquidation sale this Saturday. There, its utilised guides can be had for $2 for every browsing bag entire, and the business is willing to cut even much better cost breaks for larger sized-volume buyers.

The terrible news points out why the team is holding the occasion: The entrepreneurs of Tanglewood Mall have requested the AAUW to clear out of the house by June 10. At this issue, the guide sale has nowhere else to go — which implies Saturday’s function could be the final just one.

Currently the chapter has roughly 30,000 books, stated HelenRuth Burch, a earlier chapter president who sits on the organization’s ebook-sale committee.

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Tanglewood Mall “is just remaining a enterprise, which is what they have to be,” Burch instructed me Sunday. “They’ve been pretty good to us, so we’re not upset with them.”

“We knew that this could occur if they have been at any time capable to hire out that house for what it’s actually worthy of,” explained Peggy Shifflett, chair of the chapter’s booksale committee.

The AAUW dates to 1881 and the regional chapter has been around considering that 1923, which suggests it’ll celebrate its centennial future year. It has approximately 50 customers, Burch reported. The group’s Fb web site states Roanoke is just one of Virginia’s most energetic chapters.

Shifflett stated the group’s quite initial e-book sale occurred outdoors, on the garden of the Roanoke Major Library on Jefferson Street downtown. “It was in the rain, by the way,” Shifflett explained.

Its proceeds were turned more than to the countrywide AAUW, to fund graduate-university scholarships. At some later place in the sale’s heritage, the chapter began utilizing aspect of the proceeds to also fund undergraduate scholarships for neighborhood girls returning to college, and for young women correct out of significant college.

Subsequent product sales happened at many areas all around the valley, and by the mid-1970s, the celebration was raising hundreds of pounds for every year. Burch claimed the gross was $767 in 1977.

In 2003, Tanglewood’s owners offered to let the AAUW hold it in a shopping mall space reserved for group capabilities. Even then, the AAUW had to phase the sale, and shift its utilised textbooks from a warehouse off 10th Road Northwest to the mall for the function, and back again afterward, which was a big stress.

Beginning in 2010, the mall’s homeowners authorized the group to also retailer its textbooks inside Tanglewood, and leased the team a outlined, 3,500-sq. feet storefront on the mall’s next floor throughout from the entrance to Belk.

That relieved AAUW members of obtaining to haul the textbooks back and forth ahead of and following every single sale, and all forms of packing and unpacking. And it also meant customers could categorize and prepare donated publications as they arrived, in the course of the 12 months, alternatively then in a handful of times prior to the upcoming sale.

That permitted the group to phase product sales twice for each calendar year, instead than at the time. And the annual proceeds soared to the $10,000 range.

“Sometimes it is absent down to $8,000 or $9,000 and from time to time it goes up to $12,000,” Shifflett reported.

The most current two revenue lifted about $12,000 in proceeds. The business is now funding eight neighborhood scholarships.

The AAUW’s lease supplied that either party could finish the lease with 30-days observe — and the shopping mall determined to training that clause earlier this month, Burch claimed. John Abernathy, president of Blackwater Assets, which owns the shopping mall, did not return a telephone phone or electronic mail for remark.

The finish of the lease has also compelled the AAUW to contemplate ending the once-a-year sale. Its membership is growing older — the present-day median age of associates hovers all-around the upper 60s, Burch told me. Much less and fewer are equipped to sling containers of textbooks like they could in their youthful years.

Burch claimed she could not, underneath the conditions of the lease, disclose the rent the AAUW compensated. But it was very well underneath current market, she extra.

“They gave us a really small rent in the starting, and raised it only at the time — by $25 — and we got further expert services for that,” Shifflett claimed. The excess services integrated listing the book sale on the mall’s web page and on its electronic marquee alongside Electric Street.

The AAUW didn’t keep in-human being profits during the COVID-19 pandemic, but about four several years back it also started marketing donated textbooks on line.

That “could go on if we identified a position to shop the books,” Burch advised me. “[Storage] house is the issue, and acquiring a area that could manage the sale by itself.” For case in point, the semi-yearly gross sales require parking for attendees, due to the fact they ordinarily catch the attention of 450 to 500 possible potential buyers.

What type of guides are up for sale Saturday?

“We almost certainly have the most volumes in fiction — hardback fiction,” Burch explained. “We also have a substantial history section.” Other groups include things like nonfiction, gardening, vacation, do-it-on your own manuals, sports activities and classics.

That seems like a excellent choice. But you might want to carry your very own bags Saturday, lest the AAUW operate out amid hordes of deal seekers. For the reason that two bucks per bag is likely to carry them.

Speak to metro columnist Dan Casey at 981-3423 or [email protected]. Comply with him on Twitter:.

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