Massive parking-lot sale scheduled as fund-raiser for nonprofit Highway 58 Herald

Highway 58 Herald board members are planning a huge multi-family parking-lot sale on Saturday and Sunday, Aug. 28 and 29, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on the corner of Highway 58 and River Road in Oakridge.

The sale will take place at the historic Mannings restaurant building and parking lot across the highway from the Blue Wolf Motel. All proceeds from the sale will be donated to Highway 58 Herald, the nonprofit digital news site that serves Oakridge-Westfir and other communities along the Highway 58 corridor.

“Numerous friends of The Herald have been generously donating items in preparation for the event,” said George Custer, president of The Herald’s board of directors. “This sale will offer something for everybody.”

Items on sale will include gently used high-quality furniture and lots of clean, nearly new back-to-school clothes.  Shoes for boys, teens and men will be on display as well as tools, sporting goods/memorabilia and lots of toys for all ages.

Custer said the sale will also offer more than 50 Xbox games, four sets of golf clubs, “very nice men’s dress shirts and slacks” and many boxes of books that can be purchased at bargain prices.

“Each purchase, big or small, will go toward helping the Highway 58 Herald,” Custer said.

The Herald’s nonprofit status became official on Aug. 15 when the board of the Institute for Nonprofit News, INN.org, voted to accept Highway58Herald.org as its newest member.

“Membership in this national association confers nonprofit standing to The Herald as we continue to wait on our application for 501(c)3 status from the Internal Revenue Service,” said Herald Editor Doug Bates. “The IRS is facing a tremendous backlog of work that stacked up during the pandemic, so things are taking longer than we had hoped at the federal level, but we’ll get there.”

Highway 58 Herald is published by volunteers as a free public service aimed at providing community journalism no longer produced by the private sector. No subscription is required to read The Herald; readers may simply go online to Highway58Herald.org to access local news, information and commentary that is updated every day of the week.

Launched on Feb. 28, The Herald has relied on donations and modest advertising to cover expenses during the first six months of operation. Expenses include website maintenance, utilities and supplies for The Herald’s offices, and pay for a part-time bookkeeper and office manager. Proceeds from the Aug. 28-29 parking-lot sale will help with these needs.