The Mennonite Relief Sale

     There are a few things I do every year that just make my entire year. A few of them include All County Orchestra, going on vacation, Uprise Christian Rock Festival, and, the thing that occurs one weekend every April, the Pennsylvania Mennonite Relief Sale.

It happens to be this weekend. Usually my family and I go up Friday night, rent a hotel room to stay the night, and stay all day Saturday, but unfortunately this year, we have other plans tomorrow, so we could only go today, and my mom couldn't go at all because she had to work. Thankfully though, in order to get in as much time as possible, my dad picked me up early from school so we could get there near the beginning. I don't think anybody in my family or even any of the rest of my church friends love it as much as I do, but I swear, it's the greatest thing in the world. The profit from literally every single thing sold throughout the weekend is used to provide help for the victims of natural disasters in foreign countries, and each year the relief sale brings in thousands of dollars. Almost 30,000 dollars alone is made just off of the quilt sale!!!! And all the quilts are donated for free by women from all the surrounding states. It's incredible. Aside from quilts, there's also a thrift shop that sells clothes and (my crack) jewelry, a book shop which sells used books at about 75 cents a pop, Ten Thousand Villages selling everything at fifty percent off, and over twenty stands of food, almost all homemade and donated and sold by Mennonite churches in the tri state area.

My church runs the pie and ice cream stand. There's just so much to see and do at the relief sale that it never gets boring. I love serving people their pies as well as rifling through boxes of books to find a great deals and buying cheap tacky jewelry at the thrift shop. Plus the food is amazing, there are always tons of attractive Christian guys, and live music playing right in the middle of the whole thing. It's one of the most amazing things ever to see so many Christian people gathered together working for a common goal.

I can assure you that I will be coming to the relief sale until my family has to wheel me in there on a wheel chair because I love it so much. Today has been a long and exhausting day, but I wouldn't trade it for anything because I got to spend a large portion of it at one of my favorite places on the planet. Goodnight everyone. 

-VaughnDL