This story originally appeared in the November 2024 edition of Town&Gown magazine.
Nate Setar and his roommates needed the right furniture for their Penn State student apartment. But they were on college student budgets.
Enter Lion Surplus.
“Discovering low-cost furniture made our limited space more accommodating and comfortable for friends and family,” Setar says. “These extra pieces of furniture turned our little apartment into a welcoming gathering place, showing that you can still maximize space on a tight college budget.”
Helping dollar-deprived Penn State students furnish their places is just one way Lion Surplus, located on Services Road near the Blue Band Building on campus, has fulfilled its mission for the last several decades.
“We take used, surplus items from all Penn State departments across all campuses, sell them to individuals and businesses who can use them productively and keep all this out of landfills,” says Manager Glenn Feagley.
Staff member Janet Weaver-Miller says Nate Setar’s comments are typical.
“Customers are happy when they leave our store,” she says. She recalls a State College High School culinary class teacher who bought metal baking sheets and pans for his class. The instructor said he couldn’t have gotten them anywhere else for the price.
Weaver-Miller notes the wide variety of goods in the store can help anyone needing inexpensive pieces for their home or home office. “Laptops, monitors, tables, chairs, desks, kitchen utensils, candle holders, file folders,” she rattles off.
Businesses, too, benefit from Lion Surplus.
“Penn State’s physical plant provides us with used vehicles, including trucks,” says Joe Knarr, who handles online sales. He adds that the store once even sold a front loader. “Some items are sold for parts, such as a fryer or a cheese slicer. Businesses tell us they have the same model and this really helps in case a piece of equipment breaks down,” he says.
Knarr adds that some vehicles, all sold through GovDeals.com, are bought by individuals. Other items are sold online through eBay. Lion Surplus has been selling online for about 10 years, and these sales continue to grow at surplus.psu.edu. But many folks like to come in and browse. In-store purchases still make up about 75% of total sales.
Penn State students and businesses are only part of the clientele, though.
“Churches buy chairs, teachers get bulletin boards, fire companies buy items,” Knarr notes.
Low prices are a hallmark of the store. “We need to move a large volume, so we do keep our prices low, which helps our customers and our goal of keeping this stuff out of landfills,” adds Feagley.
Along with the prices, the variety of what’s available is also noteworthy. Lion Surplus’s inventory seems almost endless. In addition to home and office supplies, electronics and vehicles, the store often has food such as apples and grapes from PSU Food Services. This helps cut down on food waste. Cookies, brownies and breads come from university bakers. Landscaping employees provide flowers, bushes and compost material. Athletics has hockey sticks, jerseys, shoes and helmets, with a special sale on these items every year on Blue-White Game weekend. The Blue Band once even provided used trumpets when the band got new ones.
Lion Surplus belongs to a national group, the University Surplus Property Association. Members of the organization talk regularly about what works and what doesn’t, and how to improve their business model. Feagley says this includes always looking for new ways to work with all of Penn State. “Lion Surplus is talking with the Agriculture College and Ag Extension offices about a possible ag specific sale,” he notes.
Working with Penn State’s numerous commonwealth campuses provides a wider spectrum of merchandise. But Pennsylvania is a big state. Because one of Lion Surplus’s goals is to protect the environment, the organization sometimes goes to where the merchandise is. “Rather than use the energy and create the pollution to move products from a commonwealth campus to State College, we will sometimes have sales right on the various campuses,” Feagley says.
Available items are listed at 8 a.m. daily on Facebook (@LionSurplus). The site has nearly 33,000 followers, so Weaver-Miller has this advice: “Get here early. Things sell fast, especially computers.”
Lion Surplus is open Monday through Thursday from 8 a.m. until 2:30 p.m., and Friday from 7:30 a.m. until 12:30 p.m.
While the majority of customers are from the State College area, being online has expanded the territory.
“We often have folks from places like Altoona and Harrisburg here,” says Weaver-Miller. “We recently had in-store customers from Delaware and Connecticut.”
Lion Surplus has sold some unusual things, too.
“Someone bought a glider [an actual airplane] that had been in a Penn State welcome center and made a weathervane,” says Feagley. “And we sold a popsicle sculpture of Beaver Stadium.”
Lion Surplus also once sold an autopsy table from Hershey Medical Center.
In case you ever need one. T&G
Ron Ruman is a freelance writer, Centre County native and Penn State grad who lives in York.
