it’s hard to believe that we will be leaving in a month!! Our actual departure date is Jan. 6th! That date both scares me and excites me. But I know all will be well and that we will
be able to get through anything this next year with God’s help.
leaving and catch you up on some of our fundraising efforts. I figured I would post about the huge garage
sale we had back in October.
collecting donated items in mid August and quickly filled up my parents two car
garage, and I mean filled up! About 3
weeks before the garage sale we had to rent a storage unit to hold the
additional items we had been collecting.
We asked friends, family, and our neighbors. We had arranged to have the HUGE garage sale
at our church in the gym. Luckily the
ladies ministry at the church has a garage sale every year so we were very
fortunate to have some advice on set up and were able to use some of their
signs and clothes racks. We started moving all the stuff on a Tuesday afternoon
around 5. Little did we know just how
much stuff we had actually accumulated.
So Tuesday and Wednesday we were up at the church moving and sorting
things till about 11pm. Thanks Kaitlin, and Lauren, and everyone else who helped set up. Then on Thursday
night (the garage sale was Friday and Saturday) we were up there till about
3:30am. We had to take one trailer load
of stuff straight to Good Will and we left two truckloads in my parent’s garage
just because we didn’t have enough time or room for all of the stuff. So after going home Thursday night/Friday
morning Justin and my wonderful mother laid down to take a 2 hour nap while I
stayed up to get a few more things completed before the long weekend ahead. By 6:30am we were packing up the car and
putting up garage sale signs. (Yes I had
forgotten to do them the day before).
items! We had some help from friends,
Kelsey and Morgan, and my aunt Kandy! (Thanks
guys… you were life savers.) And Kelsey
had just finished her 12 hour night shift at the hospital. What a trooper. (haha…cooper trooper) Anyway, by 4pm on Friday we were worn out as
you can imagine. I had yet to go to bed
from the day before and we had been on our feet all day. But you see when you are doing crazy fund
raising there is no rest for the weary.
So, at about 5 o’clock we brought the rest of the stuff over from my parent’s
garage and marked it and put it out. We
had so much stuff it didn’t even look like we had had a garage sale on
Friday. We went home and were in bed
around 11pm.
Round two…We were up around 7am, which wasn’t too bad
considering the day before. Mom came
with us and we spent that day selling until around 5pm. Towards the end of the day we began to offer
$5 bags. We allowed people to fill the
bags up with as much as they could for 5 dollars. That definitely put a dent in the
leftovers. I’m sure “Jonathan’s Deal of
the Quarter Hour” helped out as well. It was another long day but with some
help from the Towell’s and a few others we made it through. We did spend another 6 hours boxing up
things, tearing down tables, and vacuuming to finish out the day. After it was all said and done we were
exhausted and glad it was over. Even
though it was the longest weekend of our lives (so far) we count it as a
blessing. We were able to raise over
$5,000 in two days which is no small feat.
We thank all of you for your prayers during this time and your continued
prayers and support! We will try to do
better and keep you updated as things are actually happening!
