Will Someone Please Buy this Goose?

The first of the two benefit yard sales occurred this weekend at Jeff’s house and raised $300 for the kids’ boarding school costs! I am definitely pleased with that amount and excited to see how much can be raised later this month!

I had this weird dream (wait, aren’t dreams always weird?) last week that we raised $300 at the sale. I happened to mention this to my mom and suddenly, $300 became our unofficial goal. Most likely, we could have raised more than that but we had serious rain nonstop Saturday morning that required the yard sale be moved from the front yard to the back alley garage! Needless to say, our sales were hurting on Saturday but some people did surprisingly come out to shop! We had over $207 the first day and then with the help a few purchases on Sat and a nice donation from one of my mom’s friends we had $260 in the end. My mom was either really set on the $300 goal or maybe just loves to make me happy (I’m thinking both), because she made her own donation to make our proceeds an even $300!

In addition to raising money to help the kids and getting rid of some old stuff, we enjoyed discovering others’ connections to Africa. One of our first customers knew a lady going on a mission trip to Ghana later this summer, one person’s neighbor was from Ghana, and there was a mom and son who knew a couple from church that recently adopted from Uganda. There were also several people that asked further about the Foundation and added a few extra dollars onto their purchases to help out!

Jeff and my mom deserve a HUGE THANK YOU because by default of being my family members they both got stuck doing a lot of work this weekend! Uh, I love you both….a lot! =) My mom was great because she likes to chat with people (no surprise there) and enjoyed the opportunity to talk about her kids in Ghana which helped us with more donations. Jeff’s muscles were of course a big help when it came to setting up and tearing down, but even more helpful was his willingness to entertain me on the slow, rainy day in the garage (and to ensure no one abducted me from the alley)! I may be able to obtain some of the pictures of the great outfits he pieced together from the clothes for sale! He also was great when I made him be a pretend shopper when a car would drive by! =)

The wooden goose from the picture is still left and will be waiting for a new owner at the Champaign garage sale! Really, I thought it would be a top seller when I pried it from my mom’s hands in her basement where it has sat for six years.