http://timesnews.net/article.php?id=9006229

Powell Valley High School students plan yard sale to benefit Big Stone Gap tornado victims

Published 05/04/2008 By Stephen Igo

BIG STONE GAP "? For everyone in Wise County with too much stuff "? which is likely practically everyone in Wise County "? students at Powell Valley High School have a yard sale for you.

They need your yard sale worthy stuff to redistribute for a good cause from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday, May 10. The business class students will even provide tax refund documents on all the donated stuff for those who request them.

All proceeds go to a relief fund to assist victims of a tornado that struck a portion of the town on March 4. The cyclone stomped a neighborhood in the vicinity of Bullitt Park and the Southwest Virginia Museum, destroying a number of homes and damaging dozens of others.

PVHS family and consumer sciences teacher Connie Carico said her three classes totaling 48 students, initiated by sophomore Santania Collier, wanted to do something positive to help their town. As might be expected, a benefit concert was a first great idea, but a yard sale was eventually settled on as way more practical.

"We have barely started collecting (sale items), but we hope to really pick up on that this coming week. We already started gathering bags, boxes and coat hangers,"? Carico said Friday.

An equipment room was getting cleared out to store donated sale items brought in during the upcoming week, she said, and folks are welcome to bring items the day of the sale "? hopefully early and with suggested price tags attached.

"We need things to sell. We need customers. We need everyone to know where the money is going,"? she said.

Meanwhile, Chris Balthis, a technology education teacher at Powell Valley Middle School, has collected a pile of wood from trees felled by the tornado.

Carico said Balthis has a project in mind for his shop students to transform the wood into fund-raising items, but things are still getting sorted out on that end of the twister fund-raiser.

In any event, ninth-grader Raven Cantrell's grandfather, 11th-grader Natasha Moore's dad and granddad, and Air Force ROTC instructor Master Sgt. Grover Branson hauled in three truckloads of tornado wood. Stay tuned, because something is bound to happen with a pile of wood and upwards of 90 shop students armed with tools supervised by Balthis.

Meanwhile, Carico hopes for a big community turnout for Saturday's yard sale, all for a good cause.

"We would like anyone to bring things to sell if they can bring it early enough, and hopefully have it priced,"? she said. "We would like it if people can stay and help us, too. That would be even better. We welcome people to bring their merchandise, but we would really be pleased if they would bring merchandise and stay with us."?