- By Dan Veaner
- Around Town
Print 
Each room had a theme with types of items grouped together. The largest room was filled with clothing of all sorts, and more was in large tents set up in the parking lot. The lot was entirely filled by twenty minutes after nine on Friday. "They were parking along the road," said Jim Lee who was helping to direct traffic. "We even had them on the grass. All the spots were filled until 10:30, 11 o'clock, when people started coming and going." On Saturday morning when the popular 'dollar a bag' sale takes place the lot started filling up an hour before the doors opened. "There were probably 100 cars before 10am," Lee said.
"My favorite part is working with the people," LaVigne said. We all work as one big group, and you can just make so much happen. You reach so many good people with so many good things." Some of those good things include working with other people from the church, sharing an experience putting other peoples' needs before their own. And the sale provides goods at such low prices that people who otherwise couldn't afford a winter coat or other clothing can get what they need. "These are the things that will get people through the winter for their winter cloths," LaVigne explains. "Or in the Spring sale it will be the things for their summer clothes."
Invisible to the shoppers is a crew of volunteers who support the volunteers. The kitchen crew is led by Karen Veaner in what they call 'Cafe Rummage.' "We are blessed with many wonderful cooks. We have served a variety of pasta dishes, enchiladas, stradas, cranberry chicken," she said. "Dottie Munson supplied us with three ice cream birthday cakes to celebrate the birthdays of volunteers who were here this week. Those were a big hit."
Throughout the week they served lunch for an average of 40 people each day. Those people sorted items, tested electronics, tagged them with prices and helped sell them and helped clean up afterward. "People give a lot, a lot of time, a lot of energy," LaVigne says. "There are a lot of great benefits that come off this. The interesting thing is that you really can't measure everything by what we do today in a concrete number, or how many lunches you served, or how many people showed up. Because there's that ripple effect."
By the end of the sale at noon Saturday, the church had made $8600, a bit down from the average $9,000 they usually bring in, but certainly within the ballpark. But LaVigne says that it's only partly about raising money. "We live in such a prosperous area, but in many cases we're not as prosperous money-wise. But we're very prosperous spirtual-wise. And that is the wonderful thing about this, because you can feel it here today."
The spiritual side is what motivates a lot of people to keep coming back to work the sale year after year. "You can feel there is a buzz going on and the general love people have for each other," LaVigne says. "And a lot of people who may not have been taken care of are taken care of today."
----
v2i39