Category Archives: fundraising

T-Shirt Adoption Fundraisers

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I love this t-shirt! I think it is a good conversation starter – and while not overtly adoption focused, the topic would come up quickly with anyone who asks about the meaning of the words. (if you don’t know the story behind the star fish, you can see it on Candice’s blog as well as order the shirt here). Candice is adopting from Russia.

Of course, all things Haiti are loved here as well. Kate designed these t-shirts as a fundraiser for their Haiti adoption. Thankfully God has provided the finances for the rest of their adoption in a miraculous way, but the t-shirts are still for sale (I love the v-neck line on these). There are styles for men, women and children to choose from.

 

Spending vs. Fundraising

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Truly, we have been beyond blessed and amazed at the generosity of the people in our lives. Currently, we have raised over 5,000.00 towards Giselle’s adoption – and more is still coming in! A portion of this has come from side work Darren has been provided with, but much of it is simply donations.

We take the responsibility of these donations very seriously. Honestly, I feel the responsibility deeply and sometimes I worry that people will judge our spending decisions based on our very public fundraising. So, this is where I announce to you our new, big project and tell you why and how we are taking this on at this time.

Please, let me introduce to you, my kitchen.

When we bought this house 6 years ago, I knew I could live with the kitchen “for awhile”. What I didn’t know at the time was that the previous owners nicely used a paint on the original, 1973 cabinet doors that should never have been used in a kitchen.

It’s sticky. And every time not-perfectly-clean fingers touch the door, it leaves a mark. And you can’t get it off unless you actually take off some paint. So now I have peeling paint on my already ugly kitchen cabinets. Lovely.

gotta love the old, painted hinges…

The doors occasionally fall off. Amara was the victim of this door. She was stunned – and asked if she should have a time out.  Poor thing.

“rustic” dishwasher guts

microwave stand bought (for cheap) when we were first married… 16 years ago!! We like to show it love by keeping it tidy.

A year after we bought the house, we decided to do a family missions trip to Slovakia through our church. We LOVED the trip – so much so that we went again the next year. There went my kitchen money. Then we adopted Amara. And I knew shortly after her arrival home that we would adopt again. So we started saving. And then the economy took a beating…

I know two tones of wood in kitchens is popular, but I don’t think this would pass inspection

We have recently started looking at buying a home on an acreage to house our business – so that we can pay ourselves rent instead of our landlord. But we realized that if we actually needed to sell our home, chances are we will have to sell it for much less than it could be worth if we just put some money into it. So, all that to say…

WE ARE RENOVATING OUR KITCHEN!!

And our upstairs flooring…When we first looked at our house before buying, the one thing I knew I couldn’t live with was the living room rug, probably 1980′s, no (or at least super cheap) underlay, stained (under all the strategically placed furniture)and U-G-L-Y. When Amara started crawling, my skin crawled too – at the thought of the nastiness she was on. But, the much hated carpet is still here… although not for much longer!

“So,” you ask. “If you can afford to renovate your home, why did you need to fundraise for the adoption?” Because, we still don’t have cash for the renovation. What we do have is lots of home equity, thanks to buying our house when it was worth much less than it is now. And we know for a fact that our house will sell quicker and we should more than recoup our money from this renovation if/when we need to. And in the mean time, I will get to love being in the room I spend 3/4 of my waking hours in. And of course, knowing that I don’t need to keep putting a portion of our income towards saving for the adoption anymore, will enable us to pay the renovations off much more quickly.

Our final reason for the push to get it done now is Giselle. We know that her life needs to have sameness when she arrives. For at least a year, we can’t have any huge disruptions in her life if we can at all help it. That means that it could take at least another 18 months before we can do anything with the kitchen if we don’t do it now.

And, I’ve been finding worms in my dishes. I think they live in the old wood. (GAG!!)

So there you have it, people. We really, truly aren’t using your donations for our kitchen reno. If by some miracle there is donated money left over after our process with Giselle is complete, we know that God will show us where it belongs. Does He have another adoption in our future? Or perhaps the money belongs to another family’s adoption? You can be certain that it will help fund another child coming home to a family God has chosen for them.

Amazing Photo Op

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This weekend we are going to get our family photos taken by my very talented friend Julie Rice. I am really excited to have these photos done – and am praying, praying, praying – that these are our last family photos as a family of 4.

Julie has an amazing heart for the orphan and for adoption. So she actually set up this fundraiser for us. She is doing photo shoots this Saturday and on June 25th, and half of all the proceeds go to our adoption! The most amazing thing about this fundraiser – so far Julie hasn’t let me help with one little thing. Who does that? I am completely amazed by her.

So, if you live in my area and were thinking “maybe it is time to get family photos done!”… tomorrow is going to be a BEAUTIFUL day here, and she still has spots open. You can reach me at nausfamily @ yahoo. com (no spaces), or Julie at ajulierice @ gmail. com (no spaces) if you want to do a last minute booking. You can see her work here.

Now lets just hope Amara co-operates with our family photos. The last time we had pictures done, she looked REALLY annoyed on all the pictures.

Garage Sale Fundraiser Tips

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I’m getting requests about tips for doing a garage sale fundraiser, so instead of responding to each one, I’ll write them up here for quick reference.

First of all, Sharla has written a great blog post about her tips here. You might want to read hers first as I’ll only be adding to her tips.

For us, it was nearly impossible to sort and price donations ahead of time as we don’t have a garage and were using our neighbour’s garage for the sale. That meant we needed LOTS of volunteers to help the day before. We had 8 people helping – and I still didn’t go to bed until 2am! Then up at 6:00am the next morning to continue pricing and have the items out and ready by 8:30. We had lots of signs directing people to our sale, and a large sale at the driveway stating times the sale was open – but people took those times lightly. We had people show up early and try to come in way past the sale times so you have to be flexible.

I did advertise in our local paper, online on kijiji, and in the large papers in the city only a few minutes away from us. I think that MANY of our clients came via facebook. I created an event the Monday before the sale and allowed others to share it on their status’ as well. To be honest, people who came to the sale because they heard about it via facebook were our best clients :) They were there to support us, not to grind us down to get an even better deal.

On the first day I allowed people to talk me down in price a lot – but discovered soon that it really wasn’t worth my time. We priced our items VERY low, so unless I thought the pricing was high to begin with, I wouldn’t move on the price. I just stated that it was a fundraiser, and the prices were very reasonable so we would stay with that price. By late Friday and Saturday I was more willing to talk price with people. My husband was amazing at that as he could do it with humor.

Some other things that I would add to Sharla’s post are:

1. When compiling a list of volunteers, include people who are willing to bring meals, and/or babysit your younger children. I had some young helpers come in to watch Amara and it was a lifesaver! She had so much fun and I could just focus on the sale. The people who brought us meals, coffee, wine… I could have kissed them! My kitchen was a DISASTER after the first day – my sister in law spent time cleaning up a few times and I think I did kiss her. It was such a blessing to come in to a tidy kitchen. I also had some quick meals I could throw in the slow cooker, croissants and meats for a quick snack, and Sharla brought muffins which we kept by our pricing area.

2. It can also be hugely helpful to have someone who is able to run quick errands here and there. To deposit money, check and make sure signs were still up, get food etc.

3. Wear RUNNING SHOES. Expect your feet to get very tired and sore.

4. My neighbor donated some cookies which we sold at the sale – they did very well! Perhaps having a few people donate baking might be another way people can contribute to your sale. I had treats and candy which we bought in Haiti on our last trip. They didn’t sell as well because people weren’t familiar with them.

5. Print out large 8 x 10 pictures of the child you are adopting if you have a referral picture). Place them everywhere! Many people would come talk to us about the adoption because of her picture staring at them from the tables and walls :)

Remember that one of the greatest blessings of having a sale of this type is raising awareness about adoption. I kept praying “God, any money we raise by doing this is a bonus, but please let this plant seeds in people’s hearts about adoption.” and I think He honoured that prayer. Some conversations were frustrating and I would walk away from them as quickly as possible (So you couldn’t have any of your own children? Oh it felt great to say “Yes, we have a biological child as well”), but many were very encouraging for us, and we were able to speak encouragement to other people as well.

Who knows in the end, how God will use this sale to further His kingdom and His heart for adoption? I hope at the very least it allows people who think they can’t afford to adopt to think twice about how God provides for those who follow His heart.  Missy has a great post about it here on her blog as well.

Garage Sale Finale

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The weather for our sale was incredibly fickle. In our area, garage sales start on Thursday morning and run until Saturday late afternoon. Thursday’s weather was beautiful. We all got some sun on our faces and just enjoyed being outside on such a great day. Friday brought a little bit of a different weather front. I bundled up in a warm jacket and long sleeve shirt… and a toque! Seriously – it was so incredibly cold.  We had just pulled out the 20 boxes of books and clothes when it started to rain, and we had to pull in all the books again. Thankfully we had sold SO much inventory on Thursday that it wasn’t much of a problem to pull in the boxes and find room for them in the garage. Friday’s weather was even colder with a high of 6 degrees Celcius! I pulled out my down filled winter jacket, the toque and debated on my winter boots. Thankfully it rained very little as that would certainly have put an end to our sales.

Setting up… we had pictures of Giselle and Haitian flags on the tables and walls…

Even though the weather didn’t co-operate, we still did amazingly well even on our cold days.

 Someone donated a huge collection of Coke items. I don’t think one thing was left at the end of the sale!

 Many people commented on how organized the sale was. I think it encouraged people to stay longer and look more closely. Yay Sharla for her super organization skills!
Enjoying the sunny first day of the sale.

It was amazing how donations kept coming in even on the last day! It truly was a different sale from the first day until the last. 
Here were our totals for each day.  
Thursday:  2,250.00
Friday:          520.00
Saturday       751.00
The grand total of the sale came to over 3,500.00! We are just blown away by what God did this weekend. There are still more items that we will be selling online or on consignment that will add to that price. I think when all is done, we will be close to 4,000.00.
Once again, a HUGE thank you to every one who helped with our sale whether it was in donating items, helping babysit our kids, bringing meals, sorting and organizing, bringing baking to sell and the many, many people who gave financially above and beyond what we were asking for our items. We are blessed beyond belief!
Now just waiting for that email saying “Come see the judge!” and I’m on that plane back to hold my little darling again. My arms are aching for her…

Garage Sale Update. Day 2… Almost Done!

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I need to go to bed. I think I have literally fallen asleep for a few seconds while standing a few times today. On Wednesday night we were up until 2 am sorting and tagging items for the sale. Up again at 6 to set up and continue sorting and pricing items (I don’t think I have ever finished pricing during this whole sale!). The sale was advertised with a 9 am start time, but by 8:30 we were busy.

And this was certainly a case of the early bird getting the worm.  We share a double driveway with our neighbours. Their’s goes into their back yard into a double care garage (the old kind where two cars actually can park in there comfortably). Our driveway ends at the back of our house with no garage. We had the neighbours garage full of items (don’t worry – we asked them first), all down the fence separating our yards, all down the side of our house, and all over our front lawn. It’s difficult to explain – I’ll post pictures when I’m not so brain dead. Regardless – we had a crazy amount of stuff!

But honestly, the best – most wonderful things this weekend have been conversations. I wish I could recount them all.
~There have been friends of friends who heard about us and started praying for our adoption before we ever met.
~There have been perfect strangers donating items like boots from Australia worth 700.00 – never worn – perfect strangers!
~Twin boys from Kylar’s soccer team heard about what we were doing, and asked their mom to bring them so they could bring their piggy bank with money for us. That 43.17 almost brought me to my knees. I still can’t believe the hearts of these boys.
~An older gentleman who bought a book I never thought would sell (something about cells… what are those? Just kidding. I really am tired…) and he said we were doing a good thing, adopting. I said children are a blessing and we are so blessed to have them join our family. Turns out he is raising his 2 granddaughters and people tell him he is crazy. He seemed uplifted to talk to someone who understands – children are a blessing and deserve to be loved.
~ Over and over again, people have given more than we priced items for.
And so many, many more! And those are just the conversations I’ve had – Darren, Kylar, Sharla and many others have great testimonies as well. And Amara – well she was very excited that she sold a pop to a lady and got “money” too! I think her presence confirmed to people that we weren’t trying to scam anyone by calling it a fundraiser but it really is for real. Although I think she might have scared a few people off by her following them around and saying “Hi!” over and over, and asking them what they are doing and what they are looking at and asking for some money too after they had already paid me.  Oh that girl makes me laugh… and keeps me humble!

And then there have been our support team members… if I start listing, I know I’ll forget someone (pretty sure I’m typing this in my sleep) so I’m not listing names… but food has been brought at just the right time, help has come at just the right time, coffees (or iced coffees depending on the weather) brought just when we needed them… help watching Amara by some amazing young women… and of course Sharla’s amazing garage sale organization and idea capabilities. We have had a lot of people commenting on how organized and clean everything is. Really, God has taken such good care of us through His people during this sale. I am blown away.

And now I need to help God take care of me by being smart and going to bed. Tomorrow I will announce the grand total raised!

Garage Sale Chaos

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Oh My!

If it wasn’t for Sharla, I would have given up on this fundraiser garage sale idea weeks ago – but here we are…T-minus 2 days until we open my neighbors garage doors for the first of the sale.

I wish I could tell you how many families have donated items – but I really have no idea! It’s absolutely amazing. Sharla has been collecting from her family and friends, and much has come my way as well. On Wednesday evening, my hubby will be driving around with our cube van picking up items from about 5 different locations and me and my team will be going hard core on pricing everything. I have a feeling people will be dropping stuff off throughout the sale and we will just keep adding it to our (hopefully) ever dwindling pile. People have asked me if I have certain items – and I honestly just don’t know! I haven’t even looked in most of the boxes that have been dropped off so it’ll be an adventure to go through it all

Every time I start to really stress about not having enough help – someone will email me and ask how they can be part of it. My husband just told me he is able to take most of Wednesday, and hopefully all of Thursday and Friday off to help which is a HUGE relief for me! I think we might survive this.

If you live in my area and need more information about times and place, feel free to email me at nausfamily @ yahoo.com (no spaces).

I look forward to reporting all that God does in this sale.

Amazing…!!!

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Can I just say that we are blessed? Our community of friends and our church community have rallied around us in regards to Giselle’s adoption in such amazing ways!

In February I went to our church women’s retreat. I hadn’t planned on going, but my friend Leesila badgered me into it – and I’m so thankful that she did! That was at the height of not knowing if we would be able to adopt Giselle and I was in a very dark place. I was asked to speak about what was happening in front of all the women there and then they prayed for me. And this wasn’t a very polite, everyone taking turns kind of praying. It was women on their knees wailing and lamenting and crying out to God for His mercy in this situation. It was a lot of tears and it was loud… it was amazing. Not only did I finally not feel alone in that struggle, I knew without a doubt that those prayers moved mountains in the spiritual realm.
Shortly after, Sharla asked if she could help me plan a fundraiser garage sale. Now, Sharla doesn’t do nice little garage sales that raise a couple hundred bucks. No, no my friends. At her adoption fundraiser sale, people were literally coming back every day to check out her new stock as she had so many donations coming in. She made thousands – yes, thousands of dollars at her sale! If I even make half of what she did, I will be dancing for joy in the streets. The date for our garage sale is June 2-4.  And yes – I’m accepting donations!
Recently, my friend Julie asked if she could help do a fundraiser for us through her photography. I am SO excited about this one, my friends! Julie is a talented photographer with a real heart for the orphan. She will do a photo shoot at a discounted rate with half of the proceeds going to our adoption costs. If you need to update your family photos, I humbly ask you to please consider this option? You can check out her work at www.papercastle.ca, and the blog post about our fundraiser here. You can email me personally for more information at nausfamily @ yahoo.com (no spaces).
And this is just crazy – A few weeks ago, I received a baby card congratulating us on being Giselle’s parents – with a cheque for 770.00 in it – the exact amount of one of our plane tickets to Haiti!!! Can you say confirmation that we are supposed to go on this trip? And let’s not forget my amazing parents – they used their airmiles to fly my mom here, risking the very real possibility that my dear Dad will drown all her newly planted seedlings… to look after my kids for the next 7 days. They are amazing.
The Sunday after we arrive home from Haiti, our church will do a spotlight on us. That means we will be on stage, presenting what we are doing, how the trip went, do a slide show – and they want to promote all our fundraisers :)
I asked our church if they would consider doing a fundraiser for the orphanage as the orphanage director would like to build a more permanent building (they are renting right now). I was thinking small – get the Sunday school kids involved in a little project. But no, they have decided to let us use our church (which is an old movie theatre) to host a family movie night! I’m so excited about this project and to see what God does. (date TBA)
And people, the thing I am most excited about is that not only does this help us immensely financially, and emotionally through this journey but it promotes adoption. It promotes it to my neighbours, my friends, my church family… and that gets me excited!! If even one more child finds a forever family through these promotions, it will be worth the extreme exhaustion I will be feeling after having 3 fundraisers in 3 weeks!