WEST DES MOINES, Iowa, April 16, 2010 — One of the largest, busiest stores in the chain of  Hy-Vee food stores across the Midwest is sponsoring and hosting a fundraising event to benefit the Raccoon River Valley Trail Association.

The West Lakes Hy-Vee store, located at 1725 Jordan Creek Parkway in West Des Moines, will have a “Community Yard Sale” on Saturday, May 1, from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. — with all proceeds being donated to support the work of the RRVT Association and thus help in the promotion and development of the trail itself.

“Hy-Vee’s offer to do this is a big boost,” said Carla Offenburger, of Cooper, president of the RRVT Association. “We’re obviously thrilled.”

Here’s how it will work:

– On the weekend of April 24-25, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. both days, the store will be accepting donations from the public of  ”gently used household items” at a Hy-Vee semi-trailer in the north parking lot of the store. No clothing items will be accepted.  If you have questions about other items, yhou can call Stacey Sample or Nancy Richardson at the store at (515) 226-8753 or e-mail Sample at 1889catering@hy-vee.com.  So, check around the house and garage, see what interesting and useful items you would like to contribute, and get them to the West Lakes store on April 24 or 25.

– Whoever donates the “neatest” item for sale, with Sample and Richardson being the judges of that, will receive a free 2010 family membership in the RRVT Association, which comes with two 2010 trail passes.  If the winning donor is already a member, their membership will be extended through 2011.

– Shoppers at the store are receiving flyers in their grocery bags on days leading up to the big “yard sale” on May 1.  You can check out the flyer, print it out or e-mail it to friends by clicking here.

– On Saturday, May 1, show up and shop outside the West Lakes Hy-Vee store!  And stop by to say hello to several board members of the RRVT Association who will be staffing the trail promotional booth that will also be set up there.

The background on this promotion is that all Hy-Vee stores — both food stores and drug stores — host a “springtime party” every year, and all are aimed at helping some local project or agency.

Stacey Sample, the catering director at the West Lakes store, said that she and her colleagues there decided to host the “Community Yard Sale” as a benefit for the RRVT Association at the suggestion of Daniel Willrich, of Dallas Center.  He is an architect who works on the Hy-Vee corporate staff, helping design the company’s stores, and he is also a member of the board of the trail association.

“We’re glad to do this,” Sample said.  “We think it’s going to be fun, and we like helping out on the Raccoon River Valley Trail, which we think is a real asset to this area.”

Carla Offenburger, the RRVT Association president, said that “partnerships like this one we have now with the West Lakes Hy-Vee store” are a model for the kind of “relationships the trail association wants to build with individual communities and businesses all along the 56-miles of current trail, and on the new 33-mile North Loop of our trail, too.” 

She noted that at the association’s March board of directors meeting,  “the board unanimously decided to put all funds from the Hy-Vee’s Community Yard Sale toward the 33-mile loop project.  We appreciate the importance of what that loop will do for the Raccoon River Valley Trail, and we want to see it done as quickly as possible.”

She ponted out the loop “will be especially important to thousands  in the West Lakes Hy-Vee neighborhood, since one of the loop’s starting points is close by in Waukee.”

Hy-Vee, Inc., which grew from a single store in tiny Beaconsfield, Iowa, now has 220 stores in eight Midwest states.  Its corporate headquarters is in West Des Moines.