2024 Yard Sale

As we wrap up another year of our annual July 4th yard sale, we wanted to give you all a behind the scenes look at what it takes to make it happen.  This is our third year doing both the challenge walk and yard sale.  

2022

The yard sale tradition actually started because of Tracey (Christa’s bestie and now a team member).  Tracey and her sister were clearing out and preparing to sell their childhood home after their father, Harvey, passed away in 2021.  So the idea was born that Christa and I could have a yard sale on July 4th at the house with everything left in the house to help with our fundraising in 2022.  As many of you may remember, I was skeptical that this would yield anything significant.  But boy was I pleasantly surprised when we raised $1,000 in 2022.  

2023

In 2023, we joined the long running and popular Fulks Run Ruritan July 4th community yard sale.  We had another successful year and raised around $800.  We also walked away with lots of ideas for improvement the next year.  We are pretty sure the veterans at the Fulks Run Ruritan July 4th yard sale had a lot of laughs watching us as rookies.  

2024

We started posting in the fall of 2023 that we would be collecting donated items for the 2024 yard sale.  We offered to pick up and store donated items any time through the year leading up to the July 4th yard sale.  And it paid off big time when we received double the amount of donated items (shout out to Christa and Tracey for picking up and storing most of these donations).  Now for our stroke of luck when it came to securing arguably the best spots at the yard sale.  On Saturday when Christa, Tracey and Laney were at the ruritan park completing a training walk, they saw a lady marking the spots for the yard sale.  They chatted with the lady and learned we could go ahead and claim our spots from that point forward.  So they evaluated the options and selected a block of spots with a tree in the center which would provide ample shade.  The other key aspect of our block of spots was that 3 of the 4 sides of our large block of spots were on the path everyone traveled to snake through the yard sale.  Christa’s husband returned Saturday evening to place stakes with their last name noted to officially claim the spots.  

 A huge thank you to all the people who helped make this happen.  We tried to mention as many as possible in the details below but probably unintentionally missed someone.   

2024 Details:

• 900 sq ft space for our yard sale set up (4 spots)
• 300+ hangers of clothing
• 13 tables (2 clothes, 9 other merchandise, 2 for lemonade and baked good)
• 3 blankets with extra clothes (we ran out of hangers) 
• 2 trailers with merchandise
• 10 gallons of lemonade
• 80 bottles of water 
• Freezer pops
• 85+ packages of baked goods (peanut butter M&M cookies, sugar cookies, brownies, caramel corn, party mix, zucchini bread, banana pudding and dirt pudding)
• 19 people helping with set up on Wednesday night for 3 hours (Boo, Matt, Nikki, Gavin, Stephanie, Laney, Donovan, Hunter, Bucky, Cole, Hunter, Jeff, Stephanie, Kaylea, Mona, PG) 
• Yard sale time 5:00 a.m. to noon
• 1.5 hours for 4 of us to pack up with help from Matt and Boo to finish up and haul it all away
• 18+ people donated items for the yard sale (Lara, Susan, Deb, Angela, Cindy, Nikki & Nikki, Stephanie, Kaylea, Chanda, Linda, Lisa, Pam, Sandie, Jean, Pam, Rebecca and Jeff.)

Highlights:

1. Helping the kids pick their freezer pops
2. Connecting with people at the yard sale who have a personal connection to MS
3. Educating those who asked what MS is (there will be signage next year with MS information)
4. Seeing Christa’s kids and their significant others honor the memory of their grandma Linda by pitching in.
5. Witnessing how our community (close and far) supports us

From Tracey:  I just always enjoy the laughter and the memories that happen when we get together for these  events. It's just fun! And to be part of something that brings everyone together and fills the air with laughter makes my heart smile. Always amazes me how many people have their own story to share about people they know with MS.🧡

From Christa:  I love being able to share with others what we are doing and hear their stories about how they have been personally affected by MS. I never would’ve thought that having a yard sale would mean so much.