The church rummage sale.

Hello.  I'm in charge of the church rummage sale.  I have been eating, breathing and sleeping rummage and all of its greatness. I've gone in the morning, gone to work and went back.  M-W were days that I pulled 12 1/2 - 13 hour days.  The sale has reminded me of the Gilmore Girls episode, Concert Interruptus.  In that episode, she was in charge of the town rummage sale, but took those donations at her house.  While these donations didn't come to my house, they did come to my house of worship and there was A LOT of stuff.

I have placed ads.

I have begged for transportation for items and only after I accidentally shed tears while talking to a few of the church men was that handled.

I have driven to hither and yon to pick things up.  Incidentally, I've found that older folks don't give good directions and it concerns me that the few that gave me directions are also people who drive.

I've been declined pick-up by the general charities that do such things, so we had to rent a U Haul.

I have had a troupe of volunteers come every single day.  They have bagged, sorted, tossed, arranged, tagged and resorted things.  They were all truly quite a blessing.  Despite my coming a half hour before the "scheduled" work time, they were always there before me and there before I got there in the evenings.  Often, people shut the doors with me.

I had one volunteer who was frankly a rather tough nut to crack.  She apologized for being a pain in my side and we've come to an understanding and mutual respect.

I made lunch for everyone on Thursday.  They all liked it.  K made an absolutely wonderful butter cake with buttercream frosting.  :licking lips:  Every single piece of that cake went.

Today was day one of our sale.  Most people were wonderful.  I did have someone want to skip ahead and to purchase items in advance by a half hour.  I told them that the sale started at 9 AM.  "But people previous years. . . "  No.  No, they didn't.  I know.

I had a man offer me a dollar for a bed frame when it was marked for $15.  I told him no that it was marked $15.  "Well I'm not going to pay that!"  "I'll put it back."

We've sold couches, tables, TVs and outdoor tools.  We've sold clothing, knick-knacks, electronics, jewelry and more.  It's amazing what has gone out the door.

So far, we've made $3200 to go towards the building fund.  (They put an addition on 9 years ago and we're still paying on it.)

Today, I had a parishioner call about tables.  "There are no tables down in the Fellowship Hall."  "No, they are all at [the sale.]"

"But we're having a party tomorrow at noon."

We sorted out what tables could go and whatnot.  "Diane, you do know that we have our bag sale tomorrow at 12:45."

"Really?"

So during our closeout sale, there'll be a birthday party down the hall.  I told her that there may be issues with parking.  "Oh, really?"  Yes.  You open the doors for the bag sale and get out of the way or the people will pick you clean and leave you for dead.  This is the same lady who gave her friend information to call me to come pick up her yard sale leftovers.  Those yard sale leftovers were over 30 miles away.  I will now ask where they are located before I commit to going to get items.  The items donated?  Most were not of good quality.

I also have the U Haul coming, Habitat for Humanity and a local organization that takes in refugees in the area.  I just don't want to hear about how their party was negatively impacted by our presence when they should have known and were told that the sale was scheduled far in advance.

Wow.

We're working for Jesus and will continue to do so.  We're making money to put on the building tab.  That can't be a bad thing at all.