By Brenda Zimmerman

Special to the Salisbury Post

What? How could I have missed it? Seriously, I go to every single one. I didn’t see the ad.

Somehow the Friday ad for the semi-annual Yard Sale for Cystic Fibrosis slipped through the cracks last week. Area media helped publicize the event, and the Post ran a big ad in Saturday’s paper, but nothing could hold off the weather.

The sale started Friday. The start of the sale usually means lines of people up and down the driveway that have been waiting to get down to the 40-plus tables of goods that are available. Each customer is looking for the find of the day.

It was a beautiful day — sunny and breezy after days of unending rain. But there were not a dozen people there to view the wares. The entire CF team was in place and ready to go. The customer base was minimal at best.

The Post ran a huge ad in Saturday morning’s paper. But that held little hope for the remainder of the sale since there was a 100 percent chance of rain for the entire day Saturday. It was certainly a test of faith for the over 20 volunteers, family members and their fearless leader, Helen Brown.

The question was how in the world to make up the loss of revenue on the sale. One day with no advertising and the wash out on Saturday yielded barely half of a day’s sale from previous ventures.

The Lord indeed works in mysterious ways. One of the services the CF group has offered in the last few years has been to conduct estate sales. Participants are in situations where perhaps an entire family lives out of state and cannot clean out a house to get it ready to go on the market. Enter the Helen Brown Dream Team.

After the family has removed everything they want — family heirlooms, pictures, furniture, etc. — the team comes in and begins room-by-room cleaning, organizing and pricing all of the remaining inventory. Day by day, the house begins to take on the appearance of a retail setting. The sale is advertised and promoted and the entire proceeds are donated to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.

After the sale, the house is given a once over, unsold inventory is moved out. The family has a house that is cleaned and ready to hand over to a real estate agent and has a handsome tax write-off. And, by the way, the real estate agent may not be needed. In two such estate sales for CF, a yard sale attendee was put in touch with the family and bought the house outright.

Back to the Lord and His mysterious ways. Such an opportunity had presented itself to CF this fall. Volunteers and Helen all realized it was tough getting ready for two sales. But they endured and planned the usual sale on Emerald Street for the same weekend as OctoberTour and the estate sale for the following weekend.

So with the tremendous washout this past weekend, the estate sale may save the day. Much of the inventory from the rained-out sale will be transported to the estate sale location on West Thomas Street. That sale will be held inside so weather will not be a factor. Had it not been for the tight timing of the estate sale, this would have been a missed opportunity to make up the lost revenue for CF.

Helen Brown has two grandchildren with CF. Both are living full, active lives due to the advances in research and subsequent care of the CF client. In fact, her granddaughter is expecting her first child the first part of 2016, a true miracle baby. Helen and the CF volunteers would like to think that the $175,000-plus raised from the yard sales helped support the research that makes such miracles possible.

Please join us for our sale this coming weekend: 302 W. Thomas St. Friday noon until 5 p.m. and Saturday from 8 a.m. until 4 p.m. Help a great cause and come find the treasure that is waiting on you!

Brenda Zimmerman lives in Salisbury.