Barium Springs Home for Children

Today was the big day. No, not our move date but the day I took all the donated goods to the Barium Spring Home for Children. But let me back up a bit.

I had a yard sale on Saturday. It went okay. More people arrived than I expected and I actually made more money than I predicted. Afterwards I boxed up all the left over items - there was no way I was letting them back into the house! I have to say that I had a moment (or two) when I was folding the clothes and sorting them into boxes. How silly of me to be attached to certain articles of clothing! The cute little Gymboree sweaters. The snow suit. The dresses the girls wore at Christmas. I could tell you where or who we got everything from. But they had to go. So if they are going to go anywhere why not include it with the other donated items to Barium Springs?

Left over items from the garage sale.
Seven large moving boxes filled to the brim!
(I'm almost embarrassed to see how much stuff we have!)

Last night I sat down to do a bit of sewing - to finish up some bibs that I had been neglecting. To my horror my sewing machine WOULD NOT WORK! After my mini-freakout I looked at it as a sign that I had done enough. Did I reach my own personal goal of making 100 bibs? No, I didn't. But that's okay. It really is.

Thank you to Chickpea Sewing Studio for the free and easy bibs tutorial!

All items that were donated were loaded into my van - minus the handmade items. These special items were put into two separate piles. Blankets and hats in one container and bibs and burp cloths in another. On the outside of one of the containers I wrote:

I hope I didn't leave any states/countries out!

There was a total of 105 hand made items! Included were:

• 12 blankets
• 79 bibs
• 7 hats
• 7 burp cloths

If you include store-bought bibs and blankets we had an additional 11 bibs and 33 blankets. Everything else, clothing, shoes, household goods - TONS. And I mean TONS! Take a look at the Flikr photo show on the right side of this blog to see how much stuff was donate!

As scheduled I met with the donation coordinator of Barium Springs - Barb Carlson. What an awesome lady she is! She is a total breath of fresh air. I thoroughly enjoyed talking with her and wished I could've met her sooner! In accepting all the items she was incredibly gracious and appreciative to say the least! Barium Springs is so lucky to have her working for them and I am blessed to have met her!

Posing for a pic with Barb and all the handmade items.
You didn't want a picture with all the cardboard boxes, did you? ;)

So that's it. It's so strange for this whole thing to be over with. It started off as a project to give back to my community and in turn something was given back to me. You can call it a life lesson of sorts. A few things that I learned are that:

• People are good.
  
• People want to help. Don't be afraid to ask. Not only do people want to help but they appreciate the opportunity to do so! I can't tell you how many people thanked ME for allowing them to be a part of this project. It blows my mind!
  
• Sometimes it's the total stranger that comes through for you (again and again and again!)
  
• Be prepared for roadblocks because you will have them. And when you do try going with the flow because in the end it could be a blessing in disguise.
• SO.MUCH.MORE!
  

As I wrap things up I just want to thank ALL of you that helped me through this project! Those of you that donated items, blogged about it, or simply supported me by commenting on it! I couldn't have done it without you.