CRRC

I salute Aida Scott for coordinating the collection of and moving the mountains of stuff for the garage sale. And I salute Linda Weaver and Aida and others for arriving well before 7:00 am to display and price items. I arrived at 7:00 am with the cash for change and mostly handled the money, while others worked the crowd and continued to arrange items. Linda was our quarter back.

U Monthly was a perfect location. There are two large shade trees that shaded much of the area and a large paved and fenced area at the back for displaying items. We were on a very busy street which helped us attract a steady stream of customers all day long.  I can only remember one very short lull around lunch time. There was an outside electrical outlet where people could try out electrical items.  About noon several of us took a lunch break inside the building and I counted most of the money. By 3:00 or so we realized that we were not too far from raising $1,000. Linda went into quarterback mode. She called us into a huddle and we set our strategy--greet everyone with a sack and tell them they can fill it for $1. This worked beautifully. We had great camaraderie and lots of very satisfied customers.

Some of my favorite moments were:

--The young girl who kept coming back to buy $.10 items and gave us a quarter and said "keep the change."

--The man in the motorized wheel chair who drove it all around the grounds and came back with a few items in his sack. I told him that he could have a whole sack full for a $1, so he went back and got a few more items. He drove his wheel chair out to 42nd street and headed home happily..

--The woman who could barely get around walking, who came back dragging a couple of sacks full.  She sank down into our lawn chair and said she was so thankful.

--The boy who bought the solar system place mat that Paul and I had donated. He said that he was going to learn the solar system from it.

--The man who bought the compost bucket that I donated.  He said that he composts everything--does not throw anything away. He was so happy when I told him he could order filters for the bucket.