Baking for Sophie: The Yard Sale

If you're just joining us now, let me catch you up on what happened. In July, our dear cousin, Sophie was walking with her sisters and a friend and was struck and killed by a car. A couple of angels named Caroline and Shayne held a yard sale on a hot, sunny day in early August to benefit Sophie's two beautiful children, Gabe and Fiona. Maria volunteered our time and love of baking to run the bake sale table. The day before the sale, we baked our little (Montague girls are NOT known for having much junk in their trunks) tushies off. Actually, we kept our tushies, as little as they are, quite stuck on because of all the butter-disguised-as-baked-goodies we consumed while baking. Maria notes this in her post about our baking day. If you haven't read that post, check it out - it's chock full of fabulous recipes and luscious pictures. My post today will report on the sale itself. If you weren't there, you missed an incredible day. If you were there, you know how great it was.

Maria and our mother (the original bitch) hopped out of bed and went to the sale at the ungodly hour of 6:00am. Even though I wanted to be there early, I got to sleep in a bit more because my little one was still snoozing away with her teddy bear. We followed later and arrived at 8:00am. Upon driving into the parking lot of the Chatham Coffee Company where the sale would be held, I saw at least 50 people (I'm not kidding) busy setting up items on tables. I could not believe it - there were so many volunteers and so much STUFF for the sale.

And this was just one small section of the entire sale!

I burst into tears. I saw my mother and pulled over. I couldn't get out of the car fast enough. We hugged, cried and exclaimed how much this meant and how we just couldn't believe it. It was truly moving.

After the initial shock wore off, I shuttled the baked goodies over to the sale table. We went to park and I put the little one in the Ergo carrier, where she would hang out for much of the day.


We returned to the yard sale and moved our table into the shade. Note to anyone who might run a bake sale table - being in the shade is key. No melted goodies, no sunburned bakers. We set up the goodies and put Maria's awesome handmade signs up so everyone would know what they were getting themselves into.


The sale started at 9:00am after shooing away some early birds ( or were they vultures?). Business at our table was slow at first, but then it really took off. Word must have gotten around about how awesome it all tasted. We had some incredibly generous folks, like my neighbors Milt and Kathy, who bought one chocolate chip cookie for $20 and the guy who wrote a check for $100 in exchange for five of Liz's uh-maze-ing vegan cupcakes.

Yeah, they were that good.

It was hard not to break into tears every time an exchange like this happened - and it happened a lot. There were a few, shall we say, frugal folks, who must have forgotten this was a benefit sale. One guy gave me ten bucks for at least 15 pieces of coffee cake. Thankfully, this was not the norm and the generous folks more than made up for the frugal guys. We think we made about $1,000 just at the bake sale table.

It was this busy all day.

We spent the day meeting some amazing people, sharing some good times, crying together, hugging everyone we knew, seeing old and new friends. The Parkington Sisters played some beautiful music. If you ever get a chance to see them perform, you will be a very lucky person. Our family friend, Melissa sang a song that she wrote about Sophie. It was a day I will never, ever forget. In the end, we raised a HUGE amount of money, but it was bittersweet. All the money in the world won't bring back our Sophie. But, at least it will make sure Fiona gets to continue playing hockey, Gabe will still play football, they'll both suffer through braces and best of all, they'll get to fly back here from their home out west and visit with their east coast family.

Sophie, we love you and miss you every day.