March marked the time for the annual Parent Booster Club Yard Sale. HMSA’s cafeteria was bombarded with tons of items ready to be sold on March 11. The event started early that Saturday morning at nine and went on until noon.

Multiple preparations were completed ahead of time to make way for this long, awaited event. First, Ms. Kratz sent an email asking for student volunteers to help out, and she received many responses within minutes. Students were also given flyers that provided all the information they needed to attend the event.

Next, the Parent Booster Club informed parents about the event and urged them to donate any items they didn’t want anymore. The Friday before the event from 3 to 6 p.m., the PBC was stationed inside the cafeteria and welcomed all parent donations. Parents had the opportunity to earn volunteer hours by donating items. Parents received five hours for each large garbage bag filled with items. The amount of bags received varied from parent to parent. The average number of bags donated was about two bags, but some parents even brought up to seven or even ten bags. For the rest of the afternoon, the parent and student volunteers worked to separate the items into categories: women’s clothes, men’s clothes, baby clothes, books, jackets, toys, shoes, and specialty items. These categories were stationed at different tables spread out over the entire cafeteria.

On the day of the event, volunteers arrived an hour earlier in order to make sure everything was ready and organized. Students worked to post signs in the surrounding area of the school, organizing the items on tables or keeping track of a particular station. At exactly 9 a.m., there was a line of people waiting to enter the school to begin shopping.

People were delighted to see all the affordable items. Most were a dollar, but many people chose to buy the special offer. The offer was that one could buy a garbage bag for $10 and fill it with anything one wanted to; the items could be mix-matched from all the different categories! Many parents and student volunteers opted to buy the bag.

After the three hours, the event was coming to an end. However, Mr. Libramonte decided to lower the price of the bag to $7. All the people in the cafeteria began to purchase these bags and picked up anything they liked. Despite the last minute craze, there was still plenty of items that did not get purchased after the event officially ended. All volunteers worked to put the cafeteria to its original state. Volunteers cleared the items off the tables and returned the tables to the MPR. The items that weren’t purchased were put into bags and taken to local Goodwill and Salvation Army donation centers.

Ms. Kratz coordinated with the PBC to make this event possible. When I asked her if the event was difficult to plan, she said that it wasn’t very difficult because there was “an amazing crew of PBC officers, parent and student volunteers that assist[ed] and [did] most of the work.” She then informed me that the PBC had to make a few changes to this year’s yard sale. She said that one change from last year was the increase in advertisement banners. The banners were placed outside the school a few days in advance to capture attention for the event. She also said that the most important change was the “flat rate for purchases” because having different prices for items caused confusion at last year’s yard sale. The flat rate helped sell more and reduced the number of items left over after the event. Finally, Ms. Kratz wanted to thank a few people for the event: “Let me thank all the PBC officers, Mr. Libramonte, Ms. Guzman, Ms. Felix, Ms. Najera, Ms. Sanchez, Mr. Ramirez, Mr. Aguilar, and Ms. Herrera for their wonderful teamwork, great suggestions, and hard work in planning the event.  In addition, a big thank you to all the parents and students who volunteered for the event…it couldn’t happen without you!”

The final results were amazing. Over the course of the three-hour event, the number of purchases made added up to $880.51! The profit is used for any resources the PBC needs to purchase, such as the annual Celebration of Excellence, supplies, or anything that supports the students and parents of HMSA. Thank you to the PBC and Ms. Kratz for making this year’s event successful and the best yet.