Mitzi Moe
The Williston Herald

This year’s Williston Mercy Community Sale goes to prove that another man’s junk is indeed another man’s treasure.

This year’s sale is a record breaker in the history of the community event that started in 1991 as a fundraiser when Mercy Medical was trying to save the Mercy Rider Program.

In the years since, the sale continues to give support to many 501c3 programs such as the Williston Boys Baseball team. The 2009 funds are to be used by the St. Joseph’s School and the Trinity Christian School for Smart Boards in the classroom and science lab materials. The Region 1 Safe Communities is using its proceeds to educate area students on the dangers of impaired and or drunk driving.

This year, the committee raised over $72,500, well above the $40,000 average of the past four to five years, with the 2008 sale bringing in $40,623. In the fall of each year, the Healthy Williston Healthy Youth accepts grant applications. There is a subcommittee that reviews the grants and makes a recommendation to the entire Executive Committee of HWHY to vote on the recipients.

Cressi McClellan, assistant grant administrator for Healthy Williston Healthy Youth, attributes the huge success of this year’s sale to the sale committee which consisted of volunteers from St. Joseph’s School, Trinity Christian School and Region 1 Safe Communities.

“The enthusiasm the committee members had on day one was still there at 5 o’clock on Saturday,” Cressi said.

Mercy Medical and Healthy Williston Healthy Youth help facilitate the event, but it is up to the committee members to secure their own prizes, raffles and auction items each year.

This year’s largest auction item was oil pipe. Not only were large auction items secured for the sale, but organizers were just shy of selling the 5,000 raffle tickets they had printed.

Doug Black, Trinity Christian School administrator/development director, said volunteers acquired $7,000-$8,000 more this year in oil pipe than in past years. The oil companies were a large contributor to the sale.

This is not the first go round for Black, as he has worked on the community sale for nine years. When Trinity was named a grant winner, he immediately put his team together, as he believes the key to the success was putting the right people in the right places.

Black feels the three beneficiaries meshed well, along with the Mercy Medical and HWHY.

“I don’t know if you could put a better team in place,” he said. “Both myself and Pete (Peter Lingen, principal of St. Joseph’s) feel blessed to be a part of Williston.”

Black indicated the community had an overwhelming response to the sale because the causes were faith based and many people benefit.

Lingen reiterated that having key people to obtain door prizes, auction items and selling raffle tickets is vital to this sale. Both schools do a lot of fundraising and know it is important to hold periodic meetings to make sure everything is on track for the sale.

Lingen said the parents of the two schools played a major role in this achievement. You compound that with the community support and it really added up to a success, he added..

When Lingen left the sale on Saturday, he was sure the sale was a success after hearing the raffle and the oil pipe had brought in over $40,000.

“It was an intense three days but very rewarding,” Lingen said.

He added there are so many in the community who gave general support and who are willing to give to the cause. One example is Lee Halverson, a local auctioneer who donates his time to the sale and has for several years. Halverson brings a lot of knowledge to the table on what will and won’t sell, Lingen said.

Lingen ended by saying thank you to the community of Williston for doing a very nice job, as it is humbling.

“The real winners are the students,” he said.

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