Operation Spirit4Troops Holds Fund Raising Yard Sale

ZANESVILLE, Ohio — A local nonprofit holds a two-day yard sale to help raise funds in time for Christmas.

“We buy things they need when they’re deployed, or we had an incident where we did a short notice collection and we were able to collect some gas money for a soldier that had emergency leave who was from Zanesville. Then we buy things that they need because they can’t run down to the local convenience store. Some of the chaplains will have free stores; lots of times we will just get supplies and ship that to their stores and then as the troops need them, they can come in and pick up what they need,” says Melodie Pittman, the head of the nonprofit.

Pittman says she started the effort by selling some books from a book shelf in her home in 2003 to raise money and the effort grew over the years. Now she has six or seven volunteers and has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars.

“We just want people to come out and shop, purchase things, so we can turn it into cash so we can buy supplies and have more money for shipping. After Christmas I always have to go out the day or two after Christmas and go shopping for Christmas the next year and that’s always $300-$500 we spend a couple of days after Christmas.”

The fund raising yard sale was Friday from 10am to 6pm; and Saturday from 10am to 2pm.