Saturday, November 19, 2011

Unreal

I can't even begin to put into words how thankful we are for our family and friends who donated items to the garage sale. Brody is truly loved by so many of you and we are so grateful.

I feel like this entire week was a whirlwind for myself, as well as the other ladies who put in lots of hours sorting through boxes upon boxes upon boxes of things.  I joined in on the sorting fun starting on Wednesday, but I know Kristen and Tara worked on it all week long, not counting all the time Kristen spent collecting donations from people for the last 2 weeks. I don't know about the other ladies, but I think I had this idea in my head that by Friday night everything would be perfectly organized, on tables, and priced. How wrong was I!! There was SOOOO MUCH STUFF that it was impossible to price items individually. And impossible to put it on tables by 10pm, close the garage and go to sleep. So what happened?? Matt and I stayed with Cindy, Tara, and Kristen until 1:00am setting up tables and items in the driveway. We headed home to let Brooks sleep in his bed and get a couple hours of sleep. We assumed that the girls would crash too and we'd meet them at 5:30am to finish dragging everything out. When we returned, every table was set up, every item was on display. The entire driveway and front yard were overrun with clothing, home decor, sporting goods, tools, toys, baby gear...you name it, we had it. We had enough to have 2 large garage sales. And my dear friends NEVER WENT TO SLEEP so that it was all set up and ready for our first customers. (who started coming at 6am even though we advertised 7am) And despite that, they were chipper and happy all day as they sold and dealt with professional hagglers.

I was (and still am) blown away by their hearts and attitudes this entire week. I never once heard them complain about how much work it was. Kristen never seemed to mind that her home was overtaken by other people's junk all week. They never batted an eye about the fact that they had to stay up all night and work until almost 3pm today to run the sale and clean up.

I don't even think saying "Thank You" is enough. We truly, truly appreciate everyone who pitched in. The husbands for giving up their wives, as well as working the sale today(Thanks Ken!), those who donated, the dear ladies who worked like crazy today to raise money for our Brody Boy! We love you all!!

So, how much did we raise, you ask? More than we ever imagined. $1500!!!! That is incredible to me! We had $900 of it by 8am. And we still have enough stuff leftover to have an entire other garage sale. So we plan to do another one, hopefully fairly soon. So those who donated items, hopefully by the end of the next sale, nearly every item will be sold and put towards Brody's expenses.

Tara and Kristen probably around 9pm last night..before the all nighter.

 These photos really don't do it justice. It doesn't even look all that large in the photos...but it was huge!




 We had a poster explaining what we were raising money for. We were able to share a little about Brody when people asked, as well as about our church and the body coming alongside us to put on the sale.

 Matt and Ken don't appear to doing much but cutting up right here. They were probably talking about some fantasy football trade or something. But we really put these 2 to work today. 

Cindy making a sale...and it was a BIG one :)

1 comment:

  1. Thanks to all of you who worked so hard to make the garage sale a huge success. We feel the love that you have not only for Brody (who couldn't love him) but the entire Palermo family. Thanks again.

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