Preparations are under way for one of the biggest annual garage sales held in Mansfield every year. At Berean Baptist Church, high school students, their parents, family, friends and other church volunteers are already pricing items and loading tables with merchandise to sell this week at their four-day event.
“The first three years we had it at our house,” said Becky Storkel who has been in charge of the garage sale from the beginning. Her husband is Youth Pastor Steve Storkel of the SURGE program at Berean. “But we outgrew the space and now it’s held in the Berean gymnasium, and we still can’t get everything onto the floor.” This will be their seventh year.
Although the sale doesn’t begin until Wednesday, May 14, the church has been taking in donations for the past several weeks.
“We not only completely filled the stage up to eight feet high with stuff, but the wings of the stage and adjoining rooms too,” explained Stacey Casey who is the youth administrative assistant.
The garage sale is worked by the high school students who go to Haiti every year to do specific missions work.
Jacqueline Coffman has been working the Haiti Garage Sale for several years because she has older siblings who have gone on the trip, though this will only be Coffman’s second trip. “I just love the kids there,” she said of the time she spends in Haiti. “And the work is very rewarding.”
This year 36 people are going to Haiti, which is the highest number of people who’ve ever gone, said Storkel. “It’s also the biggest church we’ve ever built.”
The teens and leaders going this year will continue the work started by several church men who went a few months ago to start the project by putting up the walls. The summer group will be making and painting pews, building trusses and putting them up, pouring the concrete floor, painting inside and out and putting up the roof.
Frank and Cathy Baker are going this year with their twin sons, Austin and Chase. This is Frank’s ninth trip to Haiti and this year the Bakers will be leaders on the trip. “I take on side jobs to help pay for our trip there,” explained Frank Baker, as he helps to put together a bunkbed with matching desks to display at the garage sale. “It’s an amazingly worthy cause.”
Ruth Ann Chirico has been taking time off work every year from the beginning to help with the garage sale. “I’m a worker, so I like to just get down to business and get it done.” Both of Chirico’s children, Felicia and Nicholas, went on the trip throughout high school and Chirico and daughter Felicia continue to go each year.
Last year the garage sale made over $10,000 and they hope to make as much if not more this year. “We take the money made and divide it among the kids who work the sale based on the number of hours they worked,” said Storkel.
The sale opens to the public on Wednesday, May 14 at 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.; Thursday and Friday, 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.; and Saturday, 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. (half-price sale on Saturday). Berean Baptist is located at 2145 Middle Bellville Road in Mansfield.
