WEST DES MOINES, Iowa, May  5, 2010 — The Raccoon River Valley Trail Association received an important financial boost on Saturday, May 1, when the huge West Lakes Hy-Vee Food Store here sponsored and hosted a “Community Yard Sale” with all proceeds being donated to the association.

Donations totaled $1,041.  That included the money from the “yard sale” of donated items, as well as from the sale of sandwiches that store employees grilled and served outdoors.  In addition, three members of the RRVT Association board of directors — Jim Miller of Waukee, Bob German of Dallas Center and Chuck Offenburger of Cooper — staffed a display booth just inside the store’s front doors and talked about the trail with hundreds of people who stopped to chat.  Those who did stop to visit about the trail donated more than $100 there at the booth.

Stacey Sample, catering manager at West Lakes Hy-Vee in West Des Moines, is shown here with Chuck Offenburger, of the Raccoon River Valley Trail Association, at an RRVT display that was set up in the store on Saturday, May 1.   Sample coordinated the store’s “Community Yard Sale,” complete with a cook-out, that raised more than $1,000 for the trail association.  Members of the board of the RRVT Association staffed the booth and talked to hundreds of Hy-Vee customers who were unanimously enthused about the new expansion of the trail.

The RRVT Association does the marketing and promotion of the trail, and is also much involved in fundraising for trail development and enhancement.

“I’ve worked our RRVT booth a lot in recent years at all kinds of public events, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen as much public enthusiasm for the trail as we got on Saturday from the Hy-Vee shoppers,” Offenburger said.  “One real neat thing about it was that people of all ages seemed to be interested — from high school kids right on up to senior citizens.  It reaffirmed in my mind how many people are using the trail, and that they recognize it as a tremendous recreational attraction for the whole area.

“When I work the booth, I’m very used to a few people coming up with questions or criticisms about how much trails cost, or about the behavior of some bike riders, or other complaints,” Offenburger continued. ”But there wasn’t any of that at Hy-Vee.  People were fired up for the trail.  They wanted to know how soon the new North Loop will be done, what the best places are  to eat and stay along the trail, what special events there are, and how they can get association memberships and trail passes.  One couple wanted to know what spot they could ride to on the trail and get to see farmers planting the fields next to the trail.  I had a great time!”

Jim Miller, of Waukee, a member of the board of directors of the Raccoon River Valley Trail Association, is shown here outside the container that held all the items donated by the public for West Lakes Hy-Vee’s “Community Yard Sale” benefitting the RRVT group.

There was a festival atmospher in the store all day long.   Besides the “yard sale” and grilling, the store turned itself into a pirates’ den, and with decorations and costumes to match.  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.  The big West Lakes store decided to help the RRVT Association at the suggestion of Hy-Vee architect Daniel Willrich, who is also a member of the association’s board.

The event was coordinated by Stacey Sample, who is normally the catering manager at the store, and another employee Nancy Richardson.  Working with them at the yard sale on Saturday, selling the donated items, were Marilyn McCleary, Jill Price and Ann Vogel.  Doing the grilling and sandwich sales were were Brittany Griswold and Molly Hartman.

Hy-Vee’s Stacey Sample is shown here in a giant container where people could browse items donated for the yard sale.

The RRVT Association had asked Sample and Richardson to pick out their favorite donations made for the event, and those donors would be awarded free association memberships and trail passes for the 2010 season.

Those winners were Robin and Vickie Seley, of West Des Moines, who purchased more than $250 worth of items at the yard sale, and Jean Robinson, of Waukee, who donated for sale a particularly neat Barbie Doll playhouse.

What all did the Seleys purchase, to spend more than $250?

“”Well, to start out, I bought two bicycles, and that’s despite the fact that I had no intention of buying a bicycle when my wife and I came to the sale,” Robin Seley said with a laugh.  “And my wife brought rollerblades.  We mainly wanted to help support the trail, just because we like trails.  We’ve never actually used the Raccoon River Valley Trail, but we will now.”

People made donations for the yard sale the last weekend of April.  Hy-Vee’s Sample said she “was worried that we wouldn’t get much stuff, or that the stuff we got wouldn’t be anything anybody wanted.  I was really concerned when one person brought in an old waffle iron that had parts of old waffles still in it.  But there were a lot of neat things donated, too, like a really nice lazer printer with four extra color cartridges — I almost bought that myself.  And things sold well. When you do something like this, you really do learn again that old line about ‘one person’s junk is another person’s treasure.’ “