Yard Sale

My amazing ward (Carrie and Audra in particular) put on a yard sale to help with Henry's medical bills, funeral expenses, headstone, etc.  It was a herculean effort to gather all the donations, get the word out, organize everything, and transport it to the site.  There were 7 trailers full of items were taken to the yard sale location and more was brought to the site by individuals.  Most of the donations were from my ward and stake, but complete strangers dropped item's off at Carrie's house.

One member of our ward, we'll call him Bob, was asked to go pick up a donation from another member of ward, let's call them the Petersons.  Bob didn't know the Petersons, so he found their address and knocked on the door.  He explained who he was and why he was there.  The Petersons had several boxes ready to go and a couch too.  The next day, the Petersons called a member of the bishopric and asked why their items hadn't been picked up?  This was relayed to a very confused Bob.  It was soon discovered that Bob had misread the address and went to the wrong house.  To a house where the family just so happened to be getting ready to donate several items so they just gave them to the guy who showed up at their door.  Crazytown, USA.

The location of the yard sale was perfect.  They got permission to have it at the U-Haul place on the main road through Ogden, instead of tucked backed at someone's house in the neighborhood.  That in itself got way more people to stop by.  Also, the food truck Waffle Love came and parked at our event.  Bri had emailed them a couple weeks previous to see if they could come (thus helping draw in customers to the yard sale as well), but they were all booked.  The morning of Bri got an email that they had a cancellation and they would be able to come to our event after all!  The timing was perfect.  They arrived in the afternoon right when things were slowing down.  It definitely brought in more people who ended up buying items from the yard sale too.

One of my favorite moments of the day was right at the end.  It was decided to give everything away for free at the end so that we'd have less to haul to the DI.  A guy came up to me (I was by the register) and handed me $20 saying "I know it's all for free, but I heard this was for charity".  I smiled, held back a laugh, and said "yes. Yes, it is.  Thank you".  After he'd walked away those of us who had heard had a good laugh.  My name is Charity...in case you forgot.

The yard sale was crazy successful.  It earned over $5000.  More than anyone expected.  And the GoFundMe account also earned over $5000, that's over $10,000.  It makes me cry thinking about it.  The results of this yard sale certainly were miraculous.  I feel like Heavenly Father is taking care of my family.  He couldn't stop Henry from dying for whatever reason, but he still loves us and helped us out financially so we wouldn't have that burden on top of losing Henry.  I'm so thankful for all those who made the yard sale happen!  You are amazing miracle workers and I know you'll be blessed for helping my little family.  I wish I could do more, but for now all I can do is express my thanks.  I love my ward!