There were deals to be found at the Niagara Pumphouse Tailgate Treasures event on Saturday.

Penny Verbruggen of St. Catharines was one of the vendors who paid $25 to park her vehicle, pop the trunk and sell some treasures. She was selling crafty items like stamps, handmade cards and bottles of beach glass.

“I'm a card maker and so I'm letting go a lot of my stamps that I have doubles and triples of, for example, and also Lake Erie beach glass. As I said to my mother, she cannot get to the beach any more so I bring the lake to her. And I've got nice little statements related to transformation, which is what the water does for the glass,” she said.

Verbruggen said selling her crafts is something she used to do regularly at craft shows and similar pop-up markets, “until the pandemic put an end to all of that.”

She normally only sells her handmade items, but included some other jewelry too, since the day had more of a garage sale feel.

“This particular show is a mix of all kinds of things,” she said. “So this is a chance to kind of purge.”

“It's a nice way to get back into being with people again. I'm hoping that we're at the outer edge of the pandemic. Because after more than a year and a half, I was losing my craft show mojo — 'How do I set up? How do I do this again.' So this is wonderful.”

Aimee Medina, marketing co-ordinator for the Pumphouse, said the morning kicked off early with vendors arrive as early as 6 a.m. to set up.

“And then we have a ton of volunteers that we're really grateful for. They co-ordinated the whole thing. They did a lot of publicity work, they got vendors to sign up. So you know we can't be any more grateful than having a wonderful set of volunteers.”

She said there was a steady flow of traffic, beginning early in the morning.

“Once he opened, the early birds, the professional antiquers and professional bargain hunters were here.”

There were about 26 vendors, Medina said, with the proceeds from the vendor fee going to support Pumphouse programs for kids and seniors.

“(When COVID hit) we closed down for a good chunk of time so to be able to continue delivering children's programs and seniors programs this type of fundraiser will really help a lot,” she said.