July 12th was a very busy day on the calendar. In the weeks that preceded the event there was much to be planned. Where would the garage sale take place? Who would be in charge of what? How would we advertise? Is this even worth doing?
Once the date was established the responsibilities were given out amongst the group. Janelle and Lisa were working on the advertisement portion of the garage sale. They came up with the genius plan of posting the sale both on Craig's List and in the Sac Bee online. Their effort was well worth it in the end. Before Heather and I could even get the items out of the garage and onto the driveway people were waiting to see what we had to offer. Many of the people that arrived in the wee hours of the morning had printed the post from Craig's List and were carrying it in their hands. Lisa and Janelle did a fabulous job!
Another major responsibility was advertising on the streets in the neighborhood. Kelly Hayes, Geoff Weakley, and Elliot Coupe took on that task and did a great job. They had made about thousands signs on lime-green, burn your retinas, radioactive, neon poster boards. I think they made about a dozen, but it seemed like a lot. All I know is that there were a lot of dried up Sharpies laying around our kitchen table. Oh, and this is pretty funny in retrospect: Geoff and Kelly put the signs out the morning of the garage sale by taping them to Christmas Candy Canes that Heather and I had in our garage. I don't know why, but that makes me laugh to see garage sale signs wedged in the ground being held up by Duct Tape and a Candy Cane. It just reeks of garage sale.
The rest of us found ways of supporting the event; mostly by bringing our stuff to sell. When everyone had brought their things to sell, it was truly a sight-to-see. A four-car driveway was full and the sale items overflowed into the grass as well. There was a lot of stuff. Everyone who brought things were encouraged to brings items that would sell and they were not to use the garage sale as a place to drop off junk. That policy worked well because there was very little remaining at the end of the day. What we had thought useless, others found useful. It truly was a day where we saw people rummaging through things and finding things they needed; and also things they didn't know they needed!
At the end of the day I sat in the garage with some folks and we counted the money. We were trying as best we could to keep an estimate of how much we had made throughout the day, but our estimates fell short of what we actually made. Our goal was $750, which would leave us roughly $600 short of our total goal. When we had finished counting the money, we were blown away to see that we had made $1301.10; a mere $7 short of our total goal.
I think from this one event our team has grown incredibly close. We had to rely on each other to make the garage sale work. There was a lot of work and planning involved which required communication. Following the garage sale we had a BBQ at Geoff's house; it was a perfect way to end the day. We rejoiced at God's provisions, laughed with each other, and ate some delicious BBQ and "funfetti cookies."
