Lincoln community members gather at Singh Duty Free Community Park

Community members displayed their clothes, toys, household appliances, and anything else they intended to give away on blankets and tables near and under a pavilion at the north end of the park.

Bob DiPaulo, who helped launch the community free market in 2012, describes it as a yard sale, except in this case, everything is free.

“People are free to bring things they no longer have use for or don’t want, and anyone else can come and take them,” he said.

The Free Community Market is open to everyone, with no need to bring items in order to pick up items and no registration required to give away your items. In fact, they only have one rule.

“Our only rule is if you bring something and it’s not taken, please take it home, because we’re just volunteers, we don’t have storage areas, and of course we want to leave the park clean,” DiPaulo said.

The Community Free Market is organized each month with the help of a group of volunteers in partnership with Tree of Hope of Lincoln and the Little Free Libraries of Lincoln. They often get extra help from the community, DePaulo said.

“Even today, a lot of people have just come up and said, ‘Do you guys need help,'” he said.

The crowd at Singh Park was larger than usual, DiPaulo said, in part because the event was held outside rather than in the city library’s meeting rooms, where it is usually centered.

The turnout benefited from the weather, as well as a pop-up wardrobe for the mobile community called Winslow’s Wardrobe.

Winslow’s Wardrobe is a “food truck-style” trailer that is taken to events throughout Lincoln that provides free gender-affirming clothing to members of the LGBTQ community, with the goal of being a hub in the community and a place to feel accepted.

Winslow’s Wardrobe President and Founder Khalisha Casey said they got involved with the community free market by random chance after a KZUM interview last year.

“The day the recording aired was actually the same day that something happened at Duty Free, so we were listening to each other on the radio on the same segment,” Casey said. “We both sent messages to each other on the same day.”

After talking to each other, Winslow’s Wardrobe and Community Free Market discovered how similar their goals were.

“It turns out it aligns perfectly with what we want to do,” Casey said.

The community free market began 12 years ago and grew out of the local Occupier movement, according to DePaulo’s daughter, Lacy Loesch. Loesch is a graphic designer for the University of Nebraska Press and a volunteer for the event.

Over time, the names have changed from “Truly Free Market” to “Free Saturday” but the idea has always remained the same.

“This is just another opportunity where people can get together on a regular basis and see friends, see other community members, and maybe even find something really cool to take home,” Loesch said.

The hope is that more organizations will organize similar events to reach more community members, Loesch said.

“I like to think we can instill that this is a normal thing to do, to be able to exchange items freely without anticipating the cost,” she said.

Next month’s event will be on May 11 in Singh Park from 10 to 11:30 a.m