TIRET GARAGE SALE A HALLOWEEN OF A SUCCESS - October 30 & 31, 2009
-Israel Morales
Neither ghosts, goblins nor the drenching thunderstorms on Thursday night and early Friday morning could scare or discourage the enthusiastic TIRET members as they followed through with the club's garage sale effort.
The two-day fundraiser was held at the home of Israel and Nora Morales and was a great success thanks to all of the members who donated the items for the garage sale and the volunteers who worked from 6:00 am to 5:00 pm on Friday and 7:00 am to 1:00 pm on Saturday. 
Twenty members donated a variety of items that included appliances, books, clothing, DVDs and VCRs, glassware, picture frames, tools, toys and much more to make it such a great success.
And an applause is in order to the volunteers who worked in the trenches as they showed up early and stayed all day long to set up, attend to the customers and help put the items back in the garage at the end of the day.
The first day started a few minutes before 6:00 a.m. on Friday with Ralph and Estella Garcia ringing the Morales' door bell with the six garage sale signs he made to be put in strategic locations near Dorrance Lane. Charles and Sylvia Slanina followed at 6:00 a.m. ready to set up the canopy that would protect us from the rain (rather, it served to give us protection from the sun).
The professional looking signs made by Ralph Garcia and the two impressive looking Dallas Cowboy Canopy's that Charles Slanina brought attracted heavy traffic on Dorrance Lane.
To keep the hungries away and to keep the members going, Estella made breakfast taquitos, Sylvia brought doughnuts and sandwiches, and Nora had coffee and drinks, sandwiches, dips and cheeses. 
Nora and Israel, having more than two months of time to price the items, and plan a customer friendly layout received many complements saying that it was neatly arranged and organized.
On Saturday, to move as many items as we could, we lowered the prices on everything to HALF PRICE.
This garage sale more than met the goal the club set out to accomplish; to raise funds for the items discussed in our luncheon meetings. But after reflecting on 'what we really did,' I must say that we should be proud of what we really accomplished.
We raised money, YES.
But consider the service we offered to many of the people who really needed a item or two at the best bargain their families could afford.. Charity? NO. They paid something for it and were proud it wasn't given to them. And 'OUR HEARTS FELT GOOD', when we saw the happy faces of the children when their parents bought them the stuffed animal they had picked.
In the end what wasn't sold was given to charity. Charles and Sylvia Slanina packed their pickup with all the donations and headed to Crockett, Texas to make the donation to the Catholic Church there.
On the scene to help out were the following volunteers: Ralph and Estella Garcia, Charles and Sylvia Slanina, Tony and Susan Leigh, Lonnie Buckner, Howard and Mary Lee Cameron, Glenn and Ligia Haworth, Carlene Chaney, Darren Welch, Lucy Salas, Mary Gomez, Vivian Watkins and Israel and Nora Morales.
At the end of each day the members felt a sense of 'MISSION ACCOMPLISHED' and that a celebration was in order. Nora brought out a bottle of wine (two really) to cheer and toast to the first successful day. And Charles Slanina would not be out done as he too brought out two bottles of wine on the second day. The toasting lasted until 8 p.m.
The amount raised for the club was $1242.30.