Giving Back...

So last month I had the honor and privelege of helping out with an awesome group of folks helping to raise both awareness and money to fight child hunger...

Together, we all pitched in and helped put on a pretty big charity rummage sale and even though the weather man's predictions were pretty far off, we managed to raise over $900 in just a few short hours.

At the end of those few short hours, my friends Jenn & Mike showed up, in the rain, to pick up the items that had been donated that hadn't sold - for use in a rummage sale that THEY would be holding to raise money for the Breast Cancer 3 Day walk - which Jenn is walking for the first time this year - (pregnant mind you!)

I'll be honest - when they showed up - I felt a little bad. It had been raining. We were wet. Items for sale were getting wet. Mike and Jenn had driven over an hour in the pouring rain with two young children, only to show up and within minutes of them being there, a dozen of us shoved donations into every possible nook and cranny of not one, but two separate vehicles. We waved buh-bye and sent them on their merry way...

I felt guilty that they would have to get this stuff home and figure out what to do with it for 3 weeks while getting ready for their own sale...

Last night - I received the following email from Jenn -

Darcie, I’ve been meaning to email you to give you an update on the garage sale but I haven’t had much energy after last week. We worked like mad people to get ready for the sale. The donations just kept coming, which was a good problem to have. As of Tuesday night, or Wed morning (1:30am) we weren’t sure how we were going to get everything in the garage before we tried to get a little sleep. We managed to shut the door but barely.
Wednesday was our best day by far. It was sunny and we sold a ton of the big stuff which was great. It rained off and on Thursday and Friday but we had sold enough stuff on Thursday that we could pull everything into the garage and still had room for people to move around.
We ended up raising $1100 which I think is amazing because we were giving things away. Most everything was priced at $0.25/.50 and up. We just priced everything to sell. On Friday we had bag day – Everything you could fit in a bag for $5.00.
The best part is we ended up helping out 3 other charities. All the baby and Maternity stuff went to a foundation that helps single mothers. The everyday clothing and shoes when to a group who is working to cloth Africa and the rest of the stuff is going to either the Goodwill, Salvation Army or to the Vets. So it felt great that this stuff just keeps on giving to other causes. Please share this info with your other bloggers and thank them again for everything they donated. We appreciated it so much.
Thank you again for setting everything up so we could get all those donations. Everything you do to help these causes is very inspiring.
We still need to find a date to get the families together. I hope all is well with you guys.
Jenn

I cannot tell you how much JOY it brings me to see people giving back. While I only donated one truck load of items to these sales (much to my husband's dismay I'm sure, as he would really love to see me move out about 10 truck loads of *stuff*) I still feel good about knowing that some of those items potentially raised money for a great causes...and if they happened to be one of the items that didn't sell - they still went to great use.

That, my friends, is what makes this all worthwhile!

Much love to the Minnesota Bloggers who helped organize the charity sale and donated not only their old treasures, but their time and talents as well.
xoxo