Garage Sale With a Mission on Grosse Ile

The Rodgers’ Family ”Free” Garage Sale funds elementary educations for orphaned girls in Kenya.

• -By David L. Dyer

In February, 2013 I met Grosse Ile resident Bethann Rodgers for the first time. While listening to her recount a project she had just completed - collecting ninety-two winter coats for needy children in local schools – one thing became clear: To know Bethann is to love her. A study in personal courage, this onetime aspiring gymnast has battled multiple sclerosis for the past 22 years. Yet her mission is to help others.

That is when I learned of her “free” Garage Sale.

While vacationing in Africa in 2010, the Rodgers family – Bethann, husband Steve, daughter Annie and son Tommy - became painfully aware of the extraordinary plight of orphaned Kenyan girls. With absolutely no chance for a decent life, countless numbers are either married off as teenagers or destined for lives of poverty. The $2,000 price tag on a K-12 education was well beyond their means or expectation.

Young Annie was especially disturbed upon learning this, asking her mom, “How can we help them?”

Together they came up with the idea of the free Garage Sale. All items donated are given away freely. The only request? A donation - in any amount - to the education of these orphaned girls.

In each of the first three years, the donations collected were enough to send a single orphaned girl to a Christian Boarding School for grades K-12.

I felt a very special need to help Bethann; she welcomed my offer to join her that year. My wife, Janet and I had a basement, a garage and an attic full of items being saved for a garage sale that was “put off”, year after year. I told Bethann we should try to double the target of $2,000 and send two children to school. We took seven carloads of “stuff” to the Garage Sale. I wrote three articles for the Ile Camera prior to the Sale, asking the Grosse Ile community to support and donate whatever items they could.

Participate they did. By Saturday evening the donations exceeded $3,000. Bethann chose to continue the sale on Sunday, and when the “Free” Garage Sale was complete, exactly $4,000 had been donated. Our prayers had been answered.

The next morning I received a message from a Donor, touched by Bethann’s mission. He anonymously matched the $4,000 collected with a like donation. Four little orphan girls would now begin school in Kenya.

In 2014, another $4,000 was donated, and two more little girls were off to school.

This year’s “Free” Garage Sale will commence at 8 a.m. this coming Saturday, August 22 - for one day only - at 26225 West River Road, Grosse Ile.

Donated items can be left on the front porch of the bright yellow farmhouse that is the Rodgers home. If you have a basement, a garage or an attic full of “stuff” to donate and need help in transporting send me an Email at davidldyer@gmail.com. I will be happy to make arrangements.

With the demise of the Ile Camera, many people may not be aware of Bethann’s “Garage Sale” or it’s purpose. Please share the information, and donate something if possible. The need is great, the cause a worthy one.

If you are in need, please stop by – all are welcome. Take what you need, give what you can, say hello to Bethann – and better a young life in the process.