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As you drive past Wilton's Route 7 tennis courts on May 1-3, hold onto your steering wheel! You might run off the road eyeballing Minks to Sinks' mega-tents with merchandise spilling out of them. This enormous, semi-annual yard sale features thousands of donated & consigned items to buy for very good prices. The money the sale raises goes to Norwalk's Family & Children's Agency, Inc., a voluntary, not-for-profit, non-sectarian family service agency.
Everything Minks to Sinks sells has been donated or consigned only a few weeks in advance of the event. A cadre of over 160 dedicated and indefatigable volunteers of many ages rapidly organize it all. Some have been doing the heavy lifting (literally and otherwise) for four decades. They price, ticket, assign and display thousands of items and then haul them to tents or outdoor sale areas. The Minks to Sinks trademark red, white and blue ticking stripe aprons they wear at the sale are their badge of honor.
Minks to Sinks began in 1931 when Wilton volunteers raised money for the Nursing Association by holding a rummage sale. The name Minks to Sinks was coined in 1952 and stuck. It still applies, volunteers say, because at least one mink and usually many sinks, seem to figure in every sale.
Once, in the '70s, a mini-hurricane struck Wilton the Friday before the sale's start. It ripped open one of the tents. Piles of neatly stacked clothing, ready for the next morning's opening, were drenched. The tent rental company rushed in to sew up the tent. By the crack of dawn Saturday, dedicated Minks to Sinks volunteers had taken all the wet clothes home, washed and dried them, and returned, creating new, neat stacks on tables under the repaired tent, in plenty of time for the sale's first customers.
In 1945, New Yorker cartoonist Whitney Darrow, who lived in Weston, memorialized Minks to Sinks outstanding effort with a distinctive drawing. It shows "the woman who has everything. She consigns it, donates or buys it at the semi-annual Minks to Sinks sale." Since its creation, the Darrow drawing has been passed along from one Minks to Sinks president to the next. Minks to Sinks hours are: Saturday May 1, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Sunday, May 2, noon to 4 p.m. (half price, bargain day) and Monday, May 3, 9 a.m. to noon, (half price & fill a bag bargain day.) Information about donations and sales can be found on the Minks to Sinks website.
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