Garage Sale Benefit for the Wims Family
 by Christi Stewart
Hey everyone!!!
So, Rich Reaves asked me to write the story about how a bible study group I’m totally involved in decided to do a benefit garage sale for a family my family knows. And I was like, “Hey! Yea, that sounds awesome. I’ll so do that.” So here goes.
So few months ago my bible study group, 17 (named after Proverbs 17:17), decided to do something that would earn money we could donate to a worthy cause. I had no idea I would be donating it to a family I knew at first. Taylor Coffman, a friend of mine who is super involved in the group, suggested doing a garage sale, and we all agreed this would be an awesome thing to do. So then we began the quest for finding out who all the money would go to. Then after a couple of weeks I realized that a family I knew from where I used to live, the Wims, could definitely need the money. My family, including my little brother and sister, had been praying for them along with many other people. At the time, Brad, the father was struggling with cancer (he had been struggling for almost 2 years). His wife is a stay at home mom, and they have two  beautiful children, Kaylen and Zeke. After realizing this and discussing it for a week or two, all of the 17 girls decided that this would be a good family to benefit. It was only maybe two weeks later that we got a phone call telling that Brad had passed away on March 2. It was very hard to understand why God didn’t answer everyone’s prayers how we were expecting Him to. After this it became completely apparent to everyone that the Wims family was definitely who God wanted to use us for. So then came the crazy planning phase.
Sarah Holley, a girl in 17 who’s pretty much the bomb-digity chick in charge, totally did amazing in helping to plan this garage sale for a family friend of mine. It was almost like one of the only things I did was come up with a date for the garage sale, and a few other various things like that! It was so amazing to see how Sarah and the other girls in 17 worked to benefit someone they had never even met. It made me so proud of all my friends! I totally love them so much! They are all amazing people! Taylor Coffman made flyers to hand out to people, Sarah emailed people about it and talked to adults about doing it, and a ton of other people totally volunteered their time to help us out! I loved seeing that many people so obviously on fire for their Savior.
 Then came the week before the garage sale - It was crazy!!! The weekend before was spent making flyers, posters, signs, and any other advertising type thing. Then we spent all the week before passing out those flyers, hanging up posters, gathering donations from people, and trying our best to spread the word that a garage sale would be held that weekend. Again, it was totally awesome to see how people helped us out! It was so encouraging to see people, especially my peers, working hard for a benefit I really cared about!
 Finally, after tons of what I thought was exhausting work it was Friday! The day before the garage sale opened. I am telling you, I thought the whole week before was work, but I was wrong- Friday was tons of work! Lots of my friends came over and helped move all the objects from my garage to the driveway! My dad used his trailer to bring even more stuff as well! My sister also had about 9 girls come over to help bake things for the bake sale! At first it was all overwhelming, but it worked out perfectly as time went on! Everybody had a great time! I had friends, my campus minister Rich Reaves and his family, my youth minister Matt Attnip and his family, as well as some superb ladies that I knew all come to help out! We even had enough people to send some to put signs around the neighborhood. Towards the end,  after most of the work was done, we had a crazy dress-up party type thing. We all found the ugliest, craziest, and weirdest clothes (there was even some lingerie - EW!) and put them on and took crazy-fun pictures! It was some of the most fun I’ve ever had! Then all the dudes went home and the ladies had an awesome sleepover consisting of… sleeping. Sort of!!! Actually, we didn’t really sleep much at all, which I admit now wasn’t very smart, but it was so worth it!
The next day I was woken up at 6:00 and I attempted to wake up my friends. (That’s REALLY early for a teenager on Saturday, just so you know). They didn’t really respond at first, much to my amusement, but eventually they got up. Somehow we managed to be outside at 7:00, the time we said the garage sale would begin. After that the guys and other people helping started coming over, and the fun began again! Tons of people came! During the morning hours, there were so many people that you couldn’t even drive throu gh my street! It was so cool! Stuff sold really well and really fast! I met a bunch of really nice people who lived in my neighborhood too! That was awesome. High School-ers and older were constantly busy, telling people prices, helping carry heavy items out to their cars, or doing anything else to lend a hand. Middle School was busy selling their delicious baked goods to the people shopping or lending a hand out to carrying stuff out with the older people. Halfway through the day, my dad brought us Panera Bread for lunch! When everything was done, everyone helped clean and saved my family a tremendous amount of time! It was a great day.
 Sunday, the day after the garage sale, we went to deliver our earnings to the Wims; Jenny, her two children, Zeke and Kaylen, and Brad’s parents were all there. I rode in my car with my mom, sister, Sarah Holley, and Shelby Richards. They were all very active in helping with the garage sale. Rich Reaves, the campus minister, went with his daughter Harper as well. Once we got there, I was so excited to see Zeke and Kaylen again. They are such beautiful little kids. So, we played with the kids and talked to the adults for awhile. Eventually it came time to tell Jenny how much money we had earned. She and her in-laws were so excited to hear the amount. Over $4,100 was raised during our garage sale. It was so exciting! We could have never done it without all the people who were willing to spend their time to benefit someone they had never even met. That is so encouraging to me. We also, most importantly, could not have come anywhere close to making that number without our Savior. He totally answered every prayer said for this garage sale, and I cannot thank Him enough for that! After we told Jenny and her in-laws, Rich said a very powerful prayer which brought tears to (I think) every person’s eyes at the time. It was beautiful and just what needed to be said. It was one of the most memorable, fulfilling weekends I have ever spent. Serving Jesus truly is a blessing to many people. |
