While getting our closets cleaned out is a good thing, recycling all that stuff by finding a new home for it is surely a better choice than just throwing it away. Some shoppers are just looking for the thrill of a good deal, but many of the folks who shop the Holy Name of Jesus rummage sale are individuals and families who need to make the most of every dollar in their meager budgets. Finding the necessities of life, and a few little luxuries, at a great price is a life-saver for them.

The Quilters of Holy Name sponsor the rummage sale to raise money to buy the fabrics and supplies they use to sew hundreds of quilts during the year. These quilts are all given away…to Home Free shelter for victims of domestic violence, to Mary’s Place, to Interfaith Outreach and Community Partner’s (IOCP) layette project, to local pregnancy care centers…anywhere a warm quilt would be a blessing on a chilly evening. What a blessing these faithful quilters are!

The rummage sale nets much more money than the Quilters need each year. The extra funds are given to a variety of organizations that serve and benefit women and children. These include: Birthright, the Total Life Care Centers, Home Free, IOCP and many more. This is part of the reason why dozens of parishioners, many of them seniors, spend an entire week at Holy Name, sometimes 10 or 12 hours a day, sorting and pricing and organizing and selling our excess stuff.

But there are many more beneficiaries of the rummage sale. Not everything sells, of course. What happens to all the rest? It blesses people all over our community and the world! The vast majority of it is claimed by an organization called “We Care-We Share,” which trucks goods of all kinds to Texas where they are distributed through a free store for the indigent. The Women’s Prison Book Project takes soft-cover books--fiction, self-help, spiritual--for incarcerated women who want to improve their minds and souls. A rehabilitation program in Minneapolis takes clothing to help men recently released from prison get appropriate clothing for job interviews. Birthright of Minneapolis takes infant clothing for their clients having babies. Jewelry and crutches go to South America. Swimsuits and soccer cleats go along with our NPH Mission Trip participants to the orphanage they will work at in Mexico. All the angels will reappear at the angel Auction in November to benefit Home Free. IOCP sends clients to pick out a few items at the end of the sale.

Can you believe all the good that flows from the simple idea of sharing our extra things at a humble rummage sale? When Pat Faue and her crew of quilters had their first tiny rummage sale more than 10 years ago, they would have never guessed how far that effort would reach. Your generous contributions of goods, hours of work, good food for all the workers, and patience with the mess have netted more than $10,000 to share, but even more than that, hundreds of people’s lives have been touched by our little week of recycling.

If you are interested in joining the Quilters (they make quilts every Monday afternoon all winter) call Pat Faue at (763) 559-5368 for information. Consider joining us at the rummage sale next June, always the week after VBS. It’s fun, exhausting and worth every minute! Look for information about it in the bulletin and on the web next spring.

Glenna Slattery, Karen Karn and Mary Guerrero, Co-Chairs 2008