Sunday, May 4, 2008

Clutter and Cash to Change the World

Enjoy this outreach story from an active member of Trinity on the Hill UMC:

In the last couple of years, my husband and I have been gradually trying to get rid of stuff that we don’t use but that someone else could. Sending clothes to Togo helped us to get rid of a lot of clothes that we no longer wore but we knew would really mean something to some much less fortunate. I was raised in a household in which everything was reused or kept just in case we may need it someday so it has been kind of hard for me. Dan Brown’s sermon a couple of weeks ago on clutter kind of hit me hard and spurred me to renew my efforts. I’ve been cleaning closets and boxing things up for the May Church white elephant sale and for a neighborhood yard sale we will have in April. All the money we will get from our yard sale will go towards our faith commitment for missions and I know that’s what the white elephant sale will do, also.

I went through my jewelry box and pulled out all the jewelry I no longer wear, separated into junk jewelry and kind of nice/gold stuff. The junk will go to the white elephant but I took the other to Windsor jewelers and they bought it for $270. That money went to our faith commitment.

The other things that I have been holding onto for years-kept them in an old cigar box-was about 15 old master’s tickets some of which were my Dad’s. I finally contacted a Master’s memorabilia salesman and took them to him on Saturday. He offered and I accepted $580 for them (can you believe I got more for old pieces of paper than for gold jewelry?). As he was writing out the check, another dealer asked what I was going to do with all this money (he wanted me to buy some of his stuff) and I replied “I’m giving it to my church.” “All of it?” our salesman asked. “Yes, all of it” I said.

With that, he took out his wallet and handed me a $20 bill and said “Add this to it to make and even $600”!

How’s that for raising money for missions with some clutter sitting around the house?

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