...will you take a quarter...?

I hate having garage sales! The thought of pricing a brand new $8 Starbucks travel mug at 75 cent (to move it) just to have some shrewd buyer say "will you take a quarter" drives me bonkers. With that as a backdrop Sue and I (with help from Bob and Pat) had our first garage sale in years. We did some serious thinning in all closets, storage areas and crawl space and produced 2 garage bays of "treasures". The stuff must be valuable since we've packed and moved much of it from our last 3 houses.
To get my mind right for the day, we decided to donate all of the money to Feed My Starving Children. FMSC now has a packing facility in Aurora, can feed 1 child for 17 cents and 94% of the donations go straight for food. They literally save lives. We put up large signs with FMSC pictures to make sure everyone knew their purchases meant something. The day turned out to be filled with unexpected adventures:

MORE STUFF - I mentioned to a few people what we were doing and if they had anything they wanted to "get rid of" we'd be glad to sell it for FMSC. Well, I'm sure my neighbors thought I was running an illegal pawn shop with droves of minivans bringing heavy boxes into my garage.

NEIGHBORS - I've never talked to so many of my neighbors in one day. The remote control garage door openers keeps me neatly tucked in my cocoon. It's like leaving the BatCave in the morning (without the flip-up, bush covered fence). My street is pretty diverse and i can't remember simple names like Dave and Kristie, you can imagine the difficulty I have with Neeraj or Mei-Yin. I found there are some great people living in Stillwater.

DONATIONS - As I mentioned, we priced the treasure to move. I refused to take anything back into our house, in fact, everything left was picked-up by Wayside Cross which helps those that need a hand up. Buyers were surprised when they'd lay down 8 hardbacks, 3 purses, a skateboard and a bike and we'd say.."Ah, that will be $16". After they would remind us that it was for all this stuff, they would often say "Here's $20, give the rest to the kids". It softened my heart a bit more each time it happened.

BOTTLED WATER - Our garage sale is one of many "FAITH IN ACTION" activities supported by Good Shepherd Church. They provided the signs and bottled water to give to thirsty folks in out community. We offered water and had cards with worship times and a map in case someone might want to look into a church home. I loved the expressions on peoples faces when they would spend 40 cents on a kid's game, and walk away with 2 free bottles of water.

Ok, I still hate garage sales...but love talking with my neighbors, helping feed starving children and the looks on people's faces when you give them a simple bottle of kindness. Oh, we made $503 which will give a hot meal to over 3000 kids, who might otherwise go to bed hungry. Now that's a real treasure!