Lincoln community members gather at Seng Park for Community Free Market

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

Bob DiPaolo, who helped start Community Free Market in 2012, describes it as a yard sale, except in this case, everything is free.

“People are free to bring items they no longer have use for or don’t want, and anybody else can just come and take it,” he said.

Community Free Market is open to everyone, with no requirement to bring items in order to take items and no registration needed to give your items away. In fact, they only have one rule.

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

The Community Free Market is put on every month with the help of a handful of volunteers in partnership with the Lincoln Tree of Hope and Lincoln’s Little Free Libraries. DiPaolo said they often get additional help from the community.

“Even today, we’ve had numerous people that just showed up and said, do you guys need help,” he said.

DiPaolo said the crowd at Seng Park was larger than usual, due in part to holding the event outside as opposed to city library meeting rooms, where it’s typically stationed.

The large turnout was benefitted by the weather, as well as a pop-up, mobile-community closet called Winslow’s Wardrobe.

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

President and Founder of Winslow’s Wardrobe Khalisha Casey said they got involved with the Community Free Market by random chance after a KZUM interview last year.

“The day that the recording aired was actually the same day that the free market had a thing, so we were listening to each other on the radio in the same segment,” Casey said. “Each of us messaged each other that same day.”

After speaking with each other, Winslow’s Wardrobe and the Community Free Market found out just how similar their goals were.

“Turns out it aligns with what we want to do perfectly,”…