Yard Sale Fundraiser

At the end of June, we put together what we were praying would be a major fundraiser for our adoption.  We had been tentatively planning a yard sale since last summer, knowing they are pretty popular fundraisers for adoptive families.  So since last summer, we have been collecting other people's junk (or treasures depending on how you look at it....we actually had some really NICE stuff!)  Our basement was FULL!

We were very blessed that our church allowed us to use our youth center/gym to hold the yard sale.  This was such a huge blessing for two main reasons....1) It was indoor, so we could have it rain or shine!  We did have a major storm go through, so we were soooo happy to be dry and sitting inside!  2)  I was able to set up for the sale all week at my own pace, instead of mass craziness the night before.

The kids and I spend pretty much a full work-week at the gym preparing for the sale.  I have never lifted so many boxes.  It was organized chaos.  There was so.much.stuff.  The donations we had been saving, plus my post-Radical house purge, and then a friend who had leftovers from her own fundraising yard sale donated the rest of her stuff.....which happened to be an entire trailer load!  We were blessed!

Deciding it was best to spend our time sorting & organizing items rather than pricing them, we decided that everything would be for sale BY DONATION.  This was a little scary for me.  I was imagining someone saying "I'll take it all!" and giving $1  :)  But I knew it was the right thing to do.  And aside from a few circumstances where the situation was taken advantage of, people seemed to be very generous!  Thank you, Lord!  For those who were "less than generous," it is my hope that we were a blessing to them, and that they needed the items more than we needed the money!!

We were also thankful for the help we received - since Jon was working all week, I really could not have done it without the help of a few people.  I don't know that they read this blog, but I will mention them by name anyway - thanks to Jill & Amanda for spending an afternoon organizing, to Sherrie who literally kept me sane and was there several days & nights helping - from set up to tear down, and to our 4 favorite guys - Tyler, Nathan, Kaleb & Eric for being there when it started and helping box up all the leftovers.  We were so blessed by all your help & hard work!

Here's a few pictures so you can see the crazy amount of stuff we had.  We did get compliments from people saying it was the most organized yard sale they had ever been to!  We also had some people wondering if we were open every weekend ;)  Sorry, just a one time only yard sale, not a flea market!

 Wondering about our grand total?  Let me start by saying I was praying for $1000.  I was thinking this would be an amazing almost unattainable goal to reach.  If we got to $1000, we would know for sure it was a God-thing.  Well, amazingly enough, we didn't hit $1000.  We blew $1000 out of the water!!!!  Our grand total ended up being......

$1516.50!!!!!!

Glory to God!!!!  We stand amazed at the way He is providing for this adoption.  Who knew lots of "junk" could raise so much money?!

Speaking of junk, here's what we had left over....

Let me just say getting rid of this has not been my favorite part of the yard sale!  :)  But still, we are SO THANKFUL!!!!