I never realized how much work a garage sale is! I suppose this is because I've never put one on myself, but just "helped" my parents when they had them (Helped being used very loosely!) We asked for donations and boy did people respond! We had more then we knew what to do with (a very good problem!) We spent a lot of prep time in the garage sorting, organizing and pricing before the big day. Then of course there was the work of hauling all the tables and boxes out Friday afternoon, back in for the night, back out Saturday morning and then taking all the stuff away once it was over.
Before you think "Wow, I can't believe they did all that themselves!", we didn't!! There is a multitude of people I need to thank for their time and help to us! Thanks to my friends Kirsten and Amanda who came to hang out with me and help price stuff ahead of time, thanks to Janie who came over Friday after lunch and helped me haul out the tables (the book table was HEAVY!) Thanks to my sister in law Alicia and her wonderful boys who made cookies and iced tea to sell. The boys were so generous and gave all the money they made to help us get a new cousin for them :) And a big thanks to both our sets of parents and my grandparents. Both our moms and my grandma did a lot of baking, which sold extremely well and fast, and they all came to help us set up, John's parents helped us put everything away Friday night and my parents and grandma came and helped us clean up everything on Saturday. Your help did not go unappreciated! You were a huge blessing to us!
Of course, the sale would not have been successful without stuff to sell and people to buy it! Thank you to EVERYONE who donated to us! We were overwhelmed with how generous people gave (although I'm sure they didn't mind us helping them get rid of their stuff!) And thank thank thank you to everyone who came and bought something (shout out especially to Lynnette Klassen!) Something happened again and again during the sale and it never failed to amaze me. People who we didn't know, but who saw our sign and what we were fundraising for, stopped to talk to us about our adoption. I of course do not get tired of telling people all about it, but what amazed me was their excitement for us. Complete strangers who did not know us were genuinely excited for us and wished us well. This blew me away! With all the evil and depravity in this world, it was wonderful to see the kindness shown to us by strangers. I hope we were able to be a little piece of Jesus to them.
So, when all was said and done, we made just over $1200!!! My goal was to reach $1000 so I was super pleased with what we raised. God is good and gave us great weather and a great turnout of people. A good fundraising kick start! A few people have messaged me wanting to support us financially and asked me for our address. If you feel led to give to us and would like to do that, our address is Box 1801
Warman, SK S0K 4S0
Also, if you would like to send us an email money transfer (I just discovered this, it is so cool!), our email is john.mandiletkeman@hotmail.com.
I always get uncomfortable asking for money, but we really do need financial help with this adoption. Please pray about it and if you feel led, we really do appreciate your support! You are leaving a wonderful legacy for our child!
I'm going to end this long post (I know, I ramble) and leave you with some pictures from our sale! Thanks for reading!
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| Everything set up and ready to sell sell sell! |
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| Two of my handy helpers |
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| Cousins at their iced tea/cookie stand! |
Good for you! I'm so glad it was a success. I was going to ask you about email-ing you some money-now I don't have to. ;)
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