Our Yard Sale Success!!

You guys...God provided for us in a huge way...we raised $2900 this past weekend on our yard sale and bake sale!! Amazing!!! We are so, so grateful!! We could not have done any of it without our amazing volunteers who worked their butts off, friends who donated items, and friends who loaned us tables and canopies!!! It was SO MUCH work, but wonderful to know it was all worth it! We felt very loved and encouraged that so many could help us bring our baby home.

Speaking of our friends who donated items...we FILLED a 26 foot U-Haul with donations from over 15 families!! Thank goodness we had just enough tables!! We sold about 2/3 of the donations, even though it started storming around 2pm on Saturday. The canopies seriously came in handy! They gave us time to get the donations inside so they weren't ruined. Friday was our biggest day, but we still made about $800 on Saturday! We made another $100 on Sunday selling leftover baked goods items at church...wonderful idea and so sweet of our friends to coordinate! We were too exhausted to go anywhere Sunday except to return the U-Haul, haha! Speaking of which...a kind soul paid for half of our truck rental!! We really felt God's presence and love throughout the whole weekend! We are truly blessed :)

We decided not to do another sale since we don't have space to store leftover donations until Spring, so we decided to donate the leftovers. We decided to split them between Salvation Army (household items and furniture), Pregnancy Resources - a local nonprofit that provides resources to people who decide to parent but can't afford it (kids clothes, toys, and baby items), and Closet 2 Closet - a local non-profit who provides clothes for teenage foster kids (adult clothes and bags). We will keep receipts for our tax return of course. :) We also held back several high value items to sell online for the adoption fund, so we will likely have even more sales coming! Will keep ya'll posted on the grand total!

What's next: 1) finish itemizing receipts and running donations to charities 2) sell leftover donations online 3) get our house decluttered and cleaned up 4) start our home study (which we can afford now, YAY!!!)  5) start our next fundraiser to raise the rest of our $5000 goal so we can hire our Christian Adoption Consultant, apply for grants, and start applying for birth mom situations!

We talked to a lady at our sale who works at the Davenport Knights of Columbus, and she gave us a great idea: host a trivia night fundraiser! She thinks we could get a discount on the space, so we're going to look into that next! That would be so much fun and hopefully less work for our friends and family. :) Check out all these donations we had!! It was wonderful how kind and generous most people were. It was exhausting, but at the end of the weekend, our hearts were overflowing.