Five pianos. A snack vending machine. A 1978 Chevy school bus.
When the Lemon Grove School District wanted to get rid of outdated equipment that was hogging precious real estate in its storage yard, it took the 21st century approach to a garage sale. It enlisted the help of Interschola, a company that converted district trash into cash by auctioning the unwanted items on eBay.
The district netted a tidy $2,400 from a weeklong online auction that was conducted in early November. But more rewarding than the scratch, which went into the general fund, was the district’s ability to unload nine of the 11 items in its space-sucking hoard.
“We’ve tried to do our own auctions in-house, but it was pretty rinky dink,” said Bret Felix, projects and facilities supervisor for the school district. “Interschola has been at it long enough they know how to do it with eBay and get the word out to so many more potential buyers.”
Since its inception in 2004, San Francisco-based Interschola has helped hundreds of school districts and public agencies around the country manage the cyber auction process — from listing items online to announcing the last virtual bang of the auctioneer’s gavel. Complying with the complex state education code that allows schools to sell their surplus on eBay, the company has helped raise about $10 million for public schools and divert millions of pounds of waste from landfills.
“Our first priority is returning revenue to school districts, but very close to that is our sustainability cause,” said Elizabeth Inpyn, client services manager for Interschola. “It is appalling the stuff that gets thrown away that can be used by so many other people.”
Inpyn cited the vast quantities of cafeteria equipment Interschola sells for schools that no longer need it because they now contract out student meals. Used stoves, rolling tables and beverage coolers are bid on by bargain-hungry restaurants, nonprofit kitchens and mom and pop establishments that would otherwise have to pay a small fortune for new equipment.
In San Diego County, Interschola has worked with 29 school districts including Lemon Grove. In late December, it facilitated the eBay auction of 21 portable classrooms owned by the San Marcos Unified School District. The Lakeside Union School District snapped them up for $12,700.
“San Marcos is happy to sell them (the classrooms) because they avoided the cost of demolition and it saved the district a lot of money,” said Bruce Collin, an Interschola field auction specialist and surplus consultant who evaluates surplus potentials and coordinates buyer pickups, among other duties. “And as the buyer, Lakeside is just getting a killer deal.”
Typically, a school district will get 55 percent of the proceeds of a sale. Interschola gets the remaining 45 percent.
Collin said bidders come from near and far. One man recently drove from Kentucky to pick up a playground system he bid on during an auction for the San Ysidro School District.
“He was thrilled to get it,” Collin said. “He got such a good deal, he was willing to drive out here to pick it up.”
The proverb “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure” never rings truer than with online auctioning. Collin said the most unusual thing he’s ever sold for a school district was a wind tunnel.
“Half the time, we find a buyer for stuff that we all consider junk,” he said. “It sometimes comes as a very pleasant surprise.”
Interschola also has an eBay store site that sends out monthly email blasts to its regular buyers in an effort to sell items that don’t move — like Lemon Grove’s vending machine and an oil drum pump — through the standard auction process. In the case of Lemon Grove’s leftovers, if they still don’t sell, Interschola will release them back to the district, which can try to sell them on their own or scrap them as it sees fit.
For the most part, though, Lemon Grove’s auction was fruitful. Describing the trove as an “interesting hodgepodge,” Felix said the five pianos, some drums and an old motor home that once served as a portable band classroom all sold. And there was an unexpected windfall.
“We were kind of surprised that someone picked up the lawn mower,” Felix said. “We had listed it at $299, but we got $600 for it.
“It was kind of fun.”