Yardsale 2016: Making Money for Merry-making

For the past 8 years, the old guard of the Hawaii ALS Support Group has been fundraising  through a yard sale. We would have made 9 years, except we skipped one. We rested. At one point, we had a little over $3,000 in the bank. We gave it all to ALS Ohana when it started.

Now we are back to $1,000 from last year's sale.  On average, we make that much yearly. It all started with Nancy Fujino and Penny Chun. When I say "old guard," I mean veteran volunteers for ALS families. The kine that hang around even when their loved ones had long passed away. Nancy is a wALS like me; Penny's brother-in-law, David Johnson, passed away from ALS. Pretty soon, more volunteers joined, and now, after 9 years of doing this, we have our act together. And some money in the bank.

Sale earnings has always been used for our annual Christmas party - toys for the keiki's pabitin, Christmas decor, food and sundry expenses, to make our party extra merry, extra memorable, extra meaningful. I think there was also a year we distributed turkey dinners to those who couldn't make it to the party because they were home-bound.

Talk about helping to make the holidays more fun for everyone! The volunteers have a good time just getting together, catching up, sharing stories about our growing families and approaching retirement.

So why not come and enjoy the day? Donate. Volunteer (to set -up on Friday, the 24th). Buy. You won't regret it. Just check out the yard sale! Specifics in the next column.

Here is a picture of the album Penny made of the 2009 Yard Sale. We've lost Robert Burkhard, Vi Jones-Medusky, and hubby, Britt Robillard since. Bob used to be the "night supervisor" of the yard sale. With beer in his wheelchair cupholder, he would sip and watch while wife, Armie, sorted and priced late into Saturday morning. Vi came by to donate money and remind us whom we were working for. Son Daniel and DIL Natalie came by to help as well. And when Britt came home from the office on Friday set-up day, my ALS apron gets replaced by my caregiver togs.

2009: 7 years ago. Less gray hair, less pounds, way younger and sprier but always, our hearts remained the same: with our ALS families.