I am not, on any level, a garage sale person. I do not go to them. I do not have them. I am perfectly content hauling stuff to St. Vincent de Paul or Goodwill when my need for it changes.
Then Superstorm Sandy struck and I decided that what I needed to do to help was: Have A Garage Sale and donate the proceeds to disaster relief.
I consulted the experts, my friends Angele and Toni, who gave me sage advice on how to have a successful garage sale, mostly related to good advertising and not being married to a particular pricepoint for anything.
As word got around, people were immensely helpful -donating items, stopping by to take a look. My friend Michelle came by the night before to help set up. One colleague from work, Renee, offered to let us use her pop-up tent and my friend Annette volunteered to spend the day helping me. Another friend came by the day before to help with the heavy lifting.
Weather predictions were dire. Once the date had been set, suddenly, it was supposed to snow. Being blessed AND lucky, I knew that the outcome was purely in God's hands, not mine. Still, I knew it my heart it wasn't going to snow.
The day before, rain and sleet poured down. I stoically painted signs and reassured callers that, snow or shine, the sale was going forward.
The streets were perfectly fine and the skies clear by 5am when I wandered around putting the signs up. At 7AM, shoppers started popping by.
Thank GOD for Annette, who froze her own behind off along side me helping staff the sale. The warmest it got while we were out was 25 degrees F. We started to trade time inside just to not freeze to death! Roxy was too cold outside and too alone inside, so she was rather discombobulated most of the day.
It never ceases to amaze me what sells at a garage sale. Stuff I would have thrown out went fast, while a really lovely old dresser never moved.
By 1pm, almost $400 was in hand. We took down the signs and headed to Wildflower Bread Co for soup and anything hot to drink. I really don't think I actually got warm until almost evening.
Still, it was sweet that so many of my coworkers stopped by, giving a few dollars extra each time to help out the folks impacted by the storm. I met quite a few of my neighbors and fielded calls from people asking about the snowblower and bicycle.
This really reminded me how awesome so many of the people in this town are and how blessed I am by my friends.
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