The veterans of the Dowagiac American Legion post will be offering a menagerie of new and used goods to visitors of Saturday’s Under the Harvest Moon Festival.

The members will be hosting a massive tag and bake sale during the day from the inside of their post, located on Orchard Street. The proceeds generated from the sale will go toward keeping the post afloat as it enters the rocky winter months.

“We’re doing this as a fundraiser,” said organizer Ernie Kurdy. “We’re not like a lot of other posts, as we don’t have a bar or a kitchen, so our only means of raising funds is through sales such as this.”

Items ranging from clothing to kitchenware and furniture will be on sale, with prices starting from only 5 cents all the way up to $125.

“It’s just like a typical garage sale, only it will be pretty good sized, since the post itself is a pretty good size,” Kurdy said. “We’ll have around 18 tables set up, so we’ll have a considerable amount of items.”

Many of the things available for purchase have been donated to Legion by the community; Kurdy’s neighbor, for example, offered up four truckloads worth of possible merchandise to the club he said. In addition, Imperial Furniture also gave them some of their returned merchandise for the sale.

“The community gave us a tremendous amount of things that are sellable,” Kurdy said.

Kurdy said he is hopeful that the Legion will be able to replicate the success it had during a similar garage sale in the spring, which it held in coordination with the Community Garage Sale Weekend, another Chamber of Commerce event. During that event, the club generated around $1,000 worth of revenue through merchandise sales and the leasing of space for out-of-town vendors.

Kurdy, a veteran of the U.S. Navy and a retired antique dealer, suggested the idea of the sale to his fellow Legion members earlier in the year. The Dowagiac post has suffered a number of setbacks in recent years, including the death of its longtime post commander last year.

However, buoyed in part by the success of the spring sale, the local veteran organization has seen a modest turn in fortunes. Membership is on the upswing, with 43 local veterans currently among its ranks.

“We’re at 97 percent of where we’re supposed to be, and it looks like we’ll wind up going over what is expected from us in Lansing [the state headquarters],” Kurdy said.

Kurdy encourages visitors of the Harvest Festival to make the trip out to the Legion post on Saturday, to help support the area’s veteran population.

“What a better way to support your local veterans than to come out to a fundraiser and meet them,” he said. “A lot of us will be on the floor, answering questions and meeting with people.”