The 1967 Sale is Announced

Included in this Northern Michigan Relief Sale Archive I told you about in the last post were church bulletins announcing the Sale. Interesting to me was the date. We have grown accustomed to the First Saturday in August timing of the sale. It apparently did not start out that way. Here is the announcement from the Fairview Mennonite Church bulletin for April 9,1967:

The date for the Relief Sale has been set for May 6, 1967. Plan now to attend, and also be thinking of items you and your family can donate.

That gave people less than a month to prepare. On April 30, 1967 this announcement was in the church bulletin:

Regarding the Relief Sale scheduled for Saturday: Please contact Mary Alice Handrich (Food Chairman) if you wish to donate food toward the noon meal, such as hamburger, tomato juice, etc.; and contact Karen Gerber (Baked Goods Chairman) if you wish to furnish any baked goods. Any donations will be appreciated; all proceeds will go to Overseas Relief.

It appears that quite some planning had gone on in the intervening year. How much more involved the logistics and planning have become. The bulletin from May 7,1967 gives the results of the sale:

The Relief Sale committee wishes to extend their sincere thanks to all of you who participated in making the sale successful by the many items that you donated for sale, as well as all the help that was volunteered. The total income from the sale amounted to approximately $2,800.00 with a few bills yet to pay from this amount. This being the first sale of this type in this area, the Committee felt that there was excellent response from all involved.

This was a visionary people who began this sale. Did they foresee that 50 years later it would continue and have grown to it’s present day proportions? It’s hard to tell, most of them are gone.