The Rotary Auction/Rummage is this weekend at Woodward School.

Across a faded green T-shirt, the white letters glistened in the Monday afternoon sun.

“Probably too old for this,” they read.

Nonetheless, the shirt’s owner continued toiling alongside dozens of fellow volunteers, young and old, who were wading through thousands of items up for sale at this weekend’s Rotary Auction.

The shirt may have heralded the shift toward increased youth involvement noticed by many in the days leading up to the event.

Not that longer teeth lead to leaner production, said volunteer coordinator Lois Lee. It’s just that the infusion of new blood is a welcome surprise.

“The kids have been wonderful this year,” she said, rattling off a list of local youth teams and groups that have volunteered thus far. “They’ve been working their knuckles to the bone.”

Some of those knuckles belong to a group of U.S. Navy and Marine volunteers, who already did some heavy lifting during set up.

The group, from Naval Base Kitsap in Bangor, also will direct traffic and help clean up following the event, which takes place this weekend at Woodward Middle School.

Last year’s auction netted $380,000. Volunteers still are needed for the weekend. Those interested should check in with Lee at the school lunchroom.

Collecting ceased as of dusk last night. Acting as gatekeeper at the dropoff spot Monday was long-time Rotarian Don Mannino.

He sported a shirt of his own that illustrated the growth of the event. The shirt, from the 1995 auction, boasted of $80,000 in proceeds raised that year.

The biggest challenge nowadays, he said, is sorting through so much stuff.

“Before we didn’t have so much,” he said. “Our goal is to recycle good, used, sellable stuff, but we’re hampered by people donating garbage.”

Those items range from broken lawn furniture to plastic Christmas trees.

Last year’s auction generated 70 tons of garbage, he said.

To help this year, organizers brought in crusher trucks from Bainbridge Disposal to get rid of unusable items before the event even begins.

Meanwhile, Mannino was getting used to a truck of his own, a dump truck on loan from the park district.

The truck was filled with boxes and bags of donated clothing and hauled to back of the school, beneath a shelter where the clothes will be sold.

“You should have seen the looks on their faces when I first pulled up,” he said. “They always said they got dumped on. This year they literally got dumped on.”

True enough, said Pam Kerston, one of the managers of the clothing department, as she surveyed a freshly dumped load.

Leftover clothes and shoes find their way to other charities she said. Shoes, for example, are ground up for sport courts.

Kerston then showed off some foot apparel that won’t likely end up as a sport court; a pair of patriotic slippers replete with the cartoonish countenances of former first couple, George and Barbara Bush, sewn to the toes.

“This is the weirdest thing we’ve seen so far,” she said, chuckling, before adding: “Doing this is a lot of fun.”

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Auction time

The always-giant Bainbidge Rotary Auction and Rummage is Friday and Saturday at Woodward Middle School.

The merchant auction begins Friday; the silent auction is from 4 to 7 p.m., followed by the live auction from 7 to 9 p.m.

Attendees on Friday can preview items for the rummage sale, which is from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday.