Team Brandon benefit sale recap

Soooo, remember my spiel about Team Brandon??

 

Here's the quick recap: our friend Brandon has cystic fibrosis and really needs a double lung transplant, so family and friends have combined forces to create 'Team Brandon' and the results have been amazing and awe-inspiring.

The incredible Emily spearheaded efforts for a big fundraising benefit sale at the beginning of May:

Oh, yeah, there was a carnival too. No big deal.

During the weeks leading up to the sale, the Murphys collected donations at their house. Our task that week was to organize it, figure out a pricing strategy, and do as much prep work as possible before Friday. 

[Sidenote: the Murphys are amazing. Seriously. I already knew this from working with them in Scouts, but this weekend reinforced it: they let us all trample all over their yard all week and helped SO much and had so many resources to help. Love them.]

Monday! We pulled everything out of the storage crate and began to sort, price bigger items, organize on tables, etc. We were there from about noon to five-thirty, at which point we shut everything back into the storage shed (in a slightly more organized fashion!) and called it a day.

On Tuesday morning we reconvened at the Murphys', where Brandon's mom and brother met us with a huge trailer of donations they had collected from their friends and neighbors. More sorting and pricing! That afternoon I sneaked away to go help with some Race for the Cure stuff (I folded t-shirts at the 'team packet pick-up' event for four hours. My back may never forgive me) but Emily and co. stayed busy making signs for the sale.

 

By Thursday it was crunch time! The morning was spent at the Murphys', doing more organizing (awesome donations kept rolling in through the week). We took a field trip in the afternoon; a friend's dad donated use of his cotton candy machine so a group of us met there, and 100 bags of cotton candy later, we partied on out. (Blessedly, I got to be in charge of the group of kids there so the other gals could actually work the machine. I walked away tired, they walked away COVERED in sticky sugar, haha).

Then it was back to the Murphys' for the long haul.  

(Can I just say how much I love Chuck's work schedule? He had Mon/Tues off and kept the kids all day both days, and then Thursday he had a training and was home by 4 to take all the kids - and then was off all weekend... with the kids. Blessed.)

I can't believe how much we got done Thursday evening! Tables set up and arranged and items laid out. Sister Murphy headed up the clothing section and it looked sooo nice.

Brandon's a superstar and spent a lot of his week there helping out - complete with his oxygen! One of the most fun aspects of all of this was getting to know him better. We played a pretty hilarious game called, "Guess what this random yard sale item actually is?" and we definitely found some winners, haha.

 Thursday night we all attempted to get some sleep (we even went running, although we were all SO freaking tired that it was probably a pretty pathetic pace. Turns out we all were hoping someone else would cancel, haha) and then EARLY Friday morning it was go time:

Woooo! Doesn't it look amazing? Teena and Brother Murphy saved us from the heat with those awesome canopies for the cashier station, the bake sale table, and the carnival entrance. We had a section over on the lawn that I called 'Furniture Row'; it even had some work-out equipment that Paulina helpfully demonstrated for us :).

Tasha and I teamed up at the Cashier station for most of the day and we had SO much fun together, despite the heat, standing up for hours on end, and some ridiculous customers. People who try to scam you at a BENEFIT sale? Seriously? We just laughed them off :). Plus we had so, so many incredibly generous people that it was impossible to feel anything but joyous and grateful.

Angie came out to help; it was really fun to see her again :). The bake sale was staffed by Sister Holm in the morning and then Brandon's awesome aunt and cousin Stephanie. Tasha and I may have run up a bit of a tab with them :). And Brandon himself sold the carnival tickets for most of the weekend!

Carnival fun! Seriously: a bounce house, icees, go fish, a cake walk (granted, it was only done a couple times just for my kid...), face painting (Em K is my hero, haha), etc.

More pictures from Friday! (That I stole from Emily B). Chuck brought the boys over to visit, which was really sweet. Brother Murphy was the grillmaster extraordinaire in charge of hot dogs. They were delicious!!

That evening we covered and tarped everything and took our weary selves home. The next morning was the 5k but I rolled over to the sale as soon as I got back to Nampa:

It was so fun to see how much more stuff had sold Saturday morning!! And we got cute new helpers in the carnival section :). And I got to prove my self as an Icee girl, haha.

Saturday afternoon was BUSY - we were trying to sell as much stuff as possible so we wouldn't have to pack it up later... which meant lots of wheelin' and dealin' :). My mom and Cody came by and helped by buying some books (shocker!) and making a donation. Love them! It was so incredible to watch people's generosity - they'd give us a twenty-dollar bill for a $4 purchase and tell us to keep the change, etc. Several people wrote sizable checks. It was so, so neat.

 And then Saturday evening came and it was time to pack up! We were slightly worried it would turn into an all-night affair, but back-up arrived (like my cute husband!!) and the clean-up went really smoothly.

Emily and I were even able to sneak away and do a quick unofficial count of the money - and we. were. floored. by how much the benefit sale raised. So amazing to be able to hand that amount over to Nycole and know that their family is that much closer to their goal. The whole week was such a wonderful thing to be a part of - I love serving alongside women who inspire me and make me laugh and there were certainly no shortage of those. Meeting various members of Brandon's family was so great - his sweet mom Kathy is a saint, and I'm pretty sure we're now lifelong friends :). Mostly it was just incredible to see what can be accomplished when so many people work together!

And because we're cheesy and awesome, we rounded most of us up for a quick Team Brandon cheer before heading our separate ways :).

Gooo Team Brandon!!