22 May Rummage at WCC: it’s more than a sale, it’s an experience that changes lives. Just ask Jacquie Erwin.
In case you missed it, Friday and Saturday May 9-10, 2025, was our 2-Day Grand Spring Rummage Sale. One of the largest rummage sales in the area, with over 25 departments, WCC’s Rummage is so big it has to be housed in three locations – and yes, you need a map to make sure you don’t miss a single thing.
First held in 1902, the Winnetka Congregational Church Rummage Sale has been going ever since. For over a century, Rummage has raised millions of dollars to benefit numerous social service agencies in the Chicago area, providing prevention, crisis and recovery services to underserved people.
And though it’s an impressive sale, where people snag amazing finds, while supporting worthy organizations, it’s more than that.
It’s a tradition that matters.
It makes a difference, not only to the church and the town of Winnetka, not only to the organizations and people the money raised supports. It’s also a tradition that makes Winnetka, the church community, and even families, stronger.
And if you have any doubts about that, you should talk to Jacquie Erwin.
Jacquie and her husband and their three kids moved to Winnetka from the Boston area in 1985 when her husband changed jobs, and they joined Winnetka Congregational Church (WCC).
Soon after joining they found out about Rummage, which Jacquie recalls, appealed to them on multiple levels. Certainly, they liked the idea of finding great deals, but they especially liked that the proceeds went to area charities and the church didn’t keep the money. And she liked it because as she says, “It was just fun! And it was a way to become even more a part of the community.”
Jacquie ended up getting on board as a volunteer, serving as chair of a number of departments over the next several years and getting her kids involved as volunteers, too.
“One year we were helping out in the toy department. And our little boy, William, was there and to keep him out of our hair and occupied, we gave him this box of sorta random plastic parts. And, you know, we’re putting things up and arranging things and we turn around and he has constructed… correctly… a couple of very saleable toys!” Perhaps it’s no surprise that William went on to earn a doctorate in nuclear engineering.
After Jacquie’s husband died suddenly in 1991, she finished her doctorate at Northwestern and in 1994 started a full-time job teaching English at Culver Academies, a college preparatory boarding school in Culver, Indiana. Working at a boarding school pretty much takes over your life, so for the next 10 years or so, her participation in Rummage had to go on hold.
But Jacquie’s mother, who lived in Wisconsin, and had come down to visit many times when they were living in Winnetka, had fallen in love with Rummage, and she continued coming and staying involved, even after Jacquie and her kids moved out of the area.
“My mom became an institution there. People still remember her.” Jacquie says. “Her name was Katherine Menn, Mama Kitty to her grandchildren and great- grandchildren, and she would carefully choose her outfits for every day of rummage. And each outfit involved a hat, high heels, coordinating jewelry, and the purse, because that is the way mom dressed. She was a high school teacher as well, and she dressed beautifully… and fun… her entire life.
“She came in and she worked at the rummage sale in a very cheerful way, but because she was always so dressed up and spectacular, she was noticed. She loved dressing beautifully and fashionably her entire life. She had great style.”
Somewhere along the way, when Jacquie’s daughter June started at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin, and Jacquie’s niece, Emily, started going to law school in Milwaukee, the two of them began joining their grandmother in coming to Winnetka to work on Rummage. Then eventually Jacquie’s daughter, Eleanor, when she was done with her residency in Virginia, began to occasionally fly in to be a part of it. And about that time, Jacquie’s job at the boarding school got to a place where she could also take a few days off to come join them and help with Rummage as well.
And the tradition has continued ever since.
Each year, as many of the women of Jacquie’s extended family who can make it, gather in Winnetka in April to help with WCC’s Rummage, including her sisters, Jessica and Twinky, and Twinky’s daughters Jenna and Erica. These days they come from Wisconsin and Indiana, Virginia and New York. Erica, Eleanor and June now even co-chair big departments. Though Mama Kitty has passed, Twinky has followed in her mother’s fabulous-shoed footsteps, dressing in her best Rummage finds.
“It’s just become a reunion for the women in the family.” And though not everybody can make it every year for the whole time, it’s a time they all look forward to, and it’s also a way to connect in spirit, at least, with Mama Kitty.
Jacquie believes Rummage not only creates a greater sense of togetherness and a deeper sense of connectedness within her family, it also does that within the WCC church community, and the larger community of Winnetka and Chicago.
“It allows people within WCC to be part of a wonderful group. And for the people who are in the larger community, it’s really providing a great service,” Jacquie believes.
“Oh, and working at Rummage is a ton of fun. Yeah, It’s tiring. Especially as I get older. Of course, I realize now I’m one of those little old ladies who used to be the oldsters at Rummage when I was…you know…a lot younger!” she adds with a laugh.
Why does Jacquie keep participating in Rummage and encourage her family to do so as well?
“Because it is a way of physically connecting with other people through what they donate and what you put out for sale and to remember, I think, with some degree of appropriate appreciation – appreciation and humility – that we’re all in this world together and helping each other and helping worthy causes makes our lives better.”
The big spring sale of Rummage 2025 is now over, but no worries, there’s a fall sale coming in October. And if you’d like to do more than shop, you can start now. Donations are accepted throughout the year, and volunteers are too. Learn more about how you can get involved here.
Who knows, once you start, it may become something you love so much, you never stop either.
