LAKE FOREST – Save the date for the county’s largest garage sale.
The 31st annual Sunwood Street Faire will be held July 25 and 26. Buyers often roam the streets well before the 8 a.m. Saturday starting time, and shoppers stop looking for things by early afternoon. On Sunday the sale again starts at 8 a.m. and winds down about noon.
More than 170 homes on Auburn Dale, Chapel Hill, Dartmouth, Foxborough, Heatherow, Marylhurst, Revere, Rockford, Toledo, Westover and Williamsburg streets are expected to participate. The Sunwood tract is between Toledo and Trabuco roads off El Toro Road. Banners announcing the event already are up at the entrances to Toledo and Serrano roads. Last year 161 of the area’s 237 homes were involved.
Not only is there lots to buy and treasures to be found, but homeowners also sell food and drinks such as hot dogs, cookies, coffee, sodas, water and snow cones. For 14 years, Janice Huynh’s renowned egg rolls have drawn long lines that snake through the tidy, close-knit neighborhood – often causing traffic congestion and gridlock in her block along Auburndale Way.
Last year one neighbor sold new shoes and the Junior Mighty Ducks hockey team sold memorabilia as a fundraiser for the team.
This year Brenda Flick, the Realtor who’s coordinated the sale, will sell handmade jewelry at her home.
Flick started the mega-garage sale – the county’s largest– as a way to do something fun as a community. The garage sale has grown into a summer must-do for many in Orange County, and draws shoppers from as far away as Mexico and Northern California.
“Who would have thought when I started it would ever be this big or go so long,” said Flick. “It’s just the people who make it, the buyers and the sellers and the neighborhood. Neighbors socialize and buy stuff from each other. The joke is, ‘Buy it from me this year and sell it in your sale next year.’ ”
Contact the writer: 949-454-7307 or eritchie@ocregister.com
