Tuesday, October 18, 2016

For the Love of One: the tale of an epic fundraiser

You know how there are times when you're like "why am I doing this???"  

I'm embarrassed to admit, last week was one of those times.  I was at home on Friday.  I had spent EVERY SINGLE NIGHT that week organizing and tagging everything in my garage and my basement to get ready for our EPIC yard sale fundraiser that weekend. I was starting to wonder if the boys even remembered who I was (other than being the crazy lady that puts stickers on things in the garage).

Mike and I had been picking up a generous amount of donated 'stuff' for the yard sale for the past month.  Lots of really nice 'stuff' that I was committed to honoring and selling.  But lots of 'stuff' means lots of work.

We have some experience holding benefit yard sales.  This yard sale would be our biggest yet, but I couldn't help reminding myself that our last multi-family benefit yard sale was also our biggest yet- and it netted just under $800.  That's not small change for us. I would have been VERY pleased with that number, so I just kept plugging away, hoping that we could get to at least $1,000.  That was my secret goal!

But even though I had a tremendous amount of help from some truly incredible people, by Friday I was tired.  I was burned out.  And then I got the mail, and found out Quest Diagnostics billed us over $600 to process our urine drug screens.

Pee.  They tested my pee.
And now we owe them $614.  

Of course, this is not covered by insurance because it is not medically necessary to have drug tests done.  But I was not prepared for the cost.  This was all part of our medical clearance required by our adoption agency as part of our home study, and honestly I thought our doctor's office had absorbed whatever expenses were associated with it.  They never charged us for our office visits, the forms they completed, or the TB test we were required to take. They were amazing!  But they didn't do the drug screen- they sent it to Quest.

So what else could I do but sit in my car and cry?

The only thought that went through my head (over and over and over) was that I was doing ALL THIS WORK and it was going to pay for a pee test!!!

After my pity party was over, I realized I was loosing sight of the forest for the trees.  ALL I was seeing was the trees.  The hundreds of dollars were trees.  The hundreds of things in my garage were trees.  Even the yard sale itself was trees!  I needed to focus on the forest: our unknown child, and bringing him or her home to us!

Happy I got my priorities straight in time for the yard sale!

The end of this story is, of course, a happy one.  Our Yard Sale and t-shirt fundraiser was a HUGE success.  SO MANY PEOPLE showed up to support us.  Many gave some.  Some gave much.  But ALL gave readily of their time and effort and money.

My favorite quote of the weekend: "I don't want your crap, but here's a donation." (From a man who literally just opened his car window and handed us cash).

At the end of the day Saturday, after our 1pm end time came and went and there were still people coming...after our 4pm cutoff came and went and there were STILL people coming, we decided to have a second day.  And on Sunday after 4pm, when everything left went into the donation pile, we were sitting on top of t-shirt sales, yard sale profits and outright donations totaling over $4,000.

That's a lot of pee.

We're looking forward to getting our home study approval this week or next (God willing), and thanks to this fundraiser and our youcaring fund, we now have enough saved to pay our next agency fee!  I'm outright humbled with gratitude.

Adoption is not an "easy" road.  There are many difficult twists and turns, and the hard work of fundraising is only one of them!  We love that our community has gathered around us, and we very much appreciate your support.  We pledge that our adopted child will know that all this was done through the help of many, "for the LOVE of ONE."

Almost sold out of t-shirts!
 Please share our fundraiser (youcaring.com/owensadoption) on social media, and please continue to pray for our baby- whoever he or she may be!

1 comment:

  1. This is awesome!!! Thanks for sharing all you learned along the way and for the humor in there too😀 I liked favorite line from the weekend. Praying for you.

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