Garage Sale Recap

It's amazing how God provides! Throughout the last few weeks we were meeting up with friends and picking up their donations for the garage sale adoption fundraiser. People were still bringing donations on the day of the sale. Below is a quick recap of our fundraising day yesterday.

The day started at 5:30 as I picked up the donated coffee for our volunteers from the local Starbucks. When I returned home a few minutes later, our neighbor was already outside and ready to help move some of the bigger items out of our garage. As friends and co-workers trickled in to help shortly after 6am, we had emptied our garage, our neighbor's garage, our dining room and basement. Thankfully we live at the end of a private road so we laid out items on our driveway, into the street, and into our neighbor's driveway across the street. We laid out all the furniture on another neighbor's driveway as well. The signs we posted said "Huge Garage Sale" and we had several people comment that this was the largest garage sale they'd ever seen. Our gracious volunteers helped us stack, sort, and hang all of the donations on tables, racks and everywhere there was space. Almost everything was out before the 8am start time, but we had early birds snooping around at around 7am.

After the setup the day was much of a blur. Our home backs to a busy street so we had a lot of traffic. From 8am until 3pm the sale was very busy. From 3pm the flow was slow and steady, and, after 6pm it became a trickle. Most of the best and largest items were gone by noon. We had a few short showers in the afternoon, but the day ended like it started, with the sun and the Lord shining down on us.

So many friends came to help us, and so many in our neighborhood and surrounding suburbs came to donate. My parents provided lunch for our volunteers and a family friend brought their children to keeps ours company. We really didn't have to ask for much help; our friends saw the need and met every one. They helped pack, carry and everything you can imagine. Thank you everyone!!

We did our sales by donation only, allowing the purchasers to donate what they felt was a fair amount. This threw a lot of people off as they could not pay without knowing a price. We did have to turn away some "low-ball" donations, but overall I feel that people were more generous with their money knowing that we were raising money for our Russian adoption. Some examples of generosity with donations were these: $25 for 7 paperback books, $40 for a chess set and a toy, and one mother who adopted two children emptied out her wallet and gave it to us. We didn't even count it. We met several adoptive families and a neighbor who lives in Russia most of the year!

So you're asking, how much did we raise? We had seen other garage sales raise over $3,000 for their adoptions, so we were hoping for around that amount, although anything over $1,000 in my mind was a success.

We will need to make our next payment of $6,700 as soon as our home study is complete. Our adoption fund has approximately $1,600 so we need about $5,100 within a few weeks. Again, our hope for the sale was $3,000 so we would only need a short-term loan of $2,100 for the next payment.

We raised $5,147.15.

I read this Saturday morning: Therefore do not be anxious, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. Matthew 6:31-32