Miss your old school desk?
Published Thursday November 5th, 2009
Going for a toonie | Yard sale Saturday at Albert Street
It might be a souvenir of your school days that you've been looking for all these years.
But 300 classroom desks going for $2 apiece will be up for grabs Saturday at Albert Street Middle School.
Ron LeBlanc, a member of the Epsilon Y's Men's Club which is organizing the sale to assist the Fredericton YMCA with clearing out the building, said getting rid of the items will spare the landfill.
The Y purchased the school and its 2.6-hectare (6.5-acre) site for $1 from the province. By 2011, it hopes to have raised the $19.5 million needed to build a new facility.
The federal government has pledged $5.2 million to help the Y expand.
It hopes to raise $3 million through public donations and collect additional cash through the sale of its YMCA property, which includes an indoor pool.
LeBlanc, who's also chairman of the Y building committee, said tenders close Nov. 6 for the removal of hazardous waste from the school - predominantly asbestos insulation - prior to its demolition.
The school will be torn down over the winter, with a target date for a construction start on a building in 2011.
The sale will run from 8 a.m. until about 4 p.m.
"When we start seeing that people aren't coming, we'll probably start to close it up, but it will run until the afternoon," LeBlanc said.
Prior to the building being handed over to the Y, School District 18 scrounged what it wanted and so did the provincial Supply and Services Department.
What's left either has to be sold, given away or trashed, and LeBlanc said it would be a shame to send items to the landfill that can be used.
"There's filing cabinets. There's teachers' desks. There's a few bookcases. There's some nice four-by-four tack boards. What we mainly have that people might be interested in are student desks, because they aren't of the type that school districts are using today," LeBlanc said.
If you see an item, make an offer or give a donation, he said.
"Whatever is purchased has to be taken out Saturday because the next week the contractors will probably be in there. Winter is coming on and we want to get started (with demolition).''
What's left of the school's old computers will be recycled, he said.
Shoppers will be restricted to the front lobby and gym area.
"There will be no walk around the school because kids have gotten into it and vandalized it.
"There's broken glass and we just can't let the public in (those areas)," he said.
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