HOLLY -- For Carl and Shirley Roos of Holly, their garage sale is much more. It is part of the lifeline for more than 200 families in the Appalachian Mountain regions of Virginia, near Pikesville. This is an area of low income Americans living in tough times.
The Roos family organized the first of several large garage sales ten years ago, calling in donations of all kinds. They do not take a profit, nor do they charge a price. You buy items with donations, often at a dollar figure lower than the item’s value. That helps those locally in need while the Roos family uses the money to buy food and other items for Appalachian families.
“We're carrying about 13,000 pounds of food,” said Carl Roos. “And believe it or not in the United States we have to take water down there because their drinking water is so contaminated from the mines. We take about 150 gallons every time we go down there,” he said.
“Every night the phone rings and I think "oh! Where are we going to put this stuff?" said Carl’s wife Shirley. She said the feeling she gets from the effort is uncanny.
“The biggest thing for me is helping the kids; the little kids that are running around in raggedy clothes or no clothes,” she said.
“They see our trucks and everybody comes out of their houses just running because they know help is on the way." The sale will be running through Sunday at 7:30pm at 6440 E. Holly Road in Holly, Michigan.
