Saturday’s moving sale at Como Lake United Church may be unlike any other such disposition.
Oh, sure, there will be rock-bottom prices because everything must go.
But that everything includes long wooden pews that have held thousands of congregants, sacred candleholders used in hundreds of services, Bibles and even choir gowns.
The church, located at 1110 King Albert St. in Coquitlam, is blowing out pretty much all its worldly possessions — and even a few otherworldly ones — in a thrift throwdown from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. tomorrow as it prepares to vacate its buildings, which will be torn down to make way for an affordable rental apartment building that will include a new, smaller, space for the congregation.
Como Lake United has had a lot of time to collect those possessions.
The church began on the site in 1925 as Central United Church and an addition was built in the 1950s. The peaked sanctuary was added in 1976 and a new wing was tacked on in 1986, according to a timeline posted on a hallway wall.
In that time, the church has hosted countless services, family and community functions, and affected the lives of people in the community, said Valerie Simpson, a volunteer charged with organizing the sale.
But the space is too much for the congregation and the land upon which it sits too valuable.
Besides, they can do some good with it.
So, at the end of the April, they’ll vacate the premises for temporary digs at nearby St. Laurence Anglican Church and then the assemblage of buildings from different eras will be torn down to make way for the new complex, which should open in about two years.
“We are building housing to help the community," Simpson said, "but we’re getting a nice little church out of it."
• Saturday’s sale is the first of two such opportunities. It will be held in the church’s banquet hall, off the lane from Marmont Street. A second sale will be held April 21, also from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. — if there’s anything left over from the first sale.
