Flea market raises funds for veterans' group
Sunday’s event was full of the knickknacks and ephemera that are part of any flea market or yard sale, the items cluttering up someone’s garage that might catch someone else’s eye or pique their interest.
One table held versions of the board game Yahtzee and the card game Uno, as well as a copy of the “Official Scrabble Players Dictionary and a box of glass vases.
At another table, old DVDs and VHS tapes — “Titanic,” “Josie and the Pussycats,” and “13 Going On 30,” among others — waited for new homes, while another table held several blue Igloo coolers.
The event at the Amvets Post #2 Farm along Md. 144 near Frederick was sponsored by Pulling for Veterans, a group that tries to raise awareness about post-traumatic stress disorder among veterans.
The group has similar events scheduled for July 28 and Sept. 29. A free Veterans Family Fun Day is scheduled for June 22 at the Burkittsvile Ruritan Grounds.
Judy Michael and her husband Butch are preparing to move to a new home and looking to downsize.
Some of the items for sale Sunday were from Judy’s collection of antique glassware.
Some pieces with some sentimental value would be hard to say goodby to, she acknowledged, pointing to a piggy bank near the front of the table.
Her mother had had one like it when Michael was growing up, which is why she had bought it, she said.
But there simply wouldn’t be room for everything in their new house.
“So, certain things have to go,” she said.
Nearby, Tiffany Hermanson was trying to make a little extra money and get rid of some of the extra stuff in her house.
She had been doing yard sales for years, but this was the first time she had ever paid for a space at an event like Saturday’s, she said.
Nadene Grissen said she saw the event on Facebook. She was trying to sell some of her bouquets of wooden roses, cutting boards and coasters.
She had started arranging the roses, lifelike wooden flowers in a variety of bright colors, about a year ago when she was recovering from surgery and couldn’t work, she said.
She said she finds arranging the bouquets relaxing.
Her son makes the cutting boards and coasters, she said.
Lots of veterans don’t feel adequate support when they leave the military and come home, said Michele Payton, Pulling for Veterans’ director of outreach.
It’s part of what contributes to an average of 22 veteran suicides a day, she said.
The issue has special meaning for Payton, who said her father was a Marine veteran who served in Vietnam and wouldn’t seek help for the PTSD he suffered.
The group helps veterans reintegrate into society, said Christina Spain, one of its members.
“People don’t understand, when you send your children, your husband, they’re not the same people when they come back,” she said.
Payton said the group, which which rents out trailers to help raise funds and celebrated its third anniversary on April 20, wants to bring awareness to PTSD and other veterans’ issues.
Judy Michael said the issue was one she and her husband “feel near and dear to.”
Along with clearing out clutter for space in their new home, Sunday’s event was a chance to help a good cause.
“We’ll sell our stuff and help the veterans at the same time,” Michael said.
