LEHI — What started out as a simple garage sale for a good cause has turned into a community effort for a friend and neighbor in a small Lehi cul-de-sac.
Residents figure if a rummage sale of everything from lawn mowers to snowblowers isn't enough to draw a crowd, an added car wash service and baked goods sale might help their Saturday morning extravaganza. The goal is to raise as much money as they can for local resident Lacy Smith, a 23-year-old mother suffering from cancer.
"I felt very helpless," said Christina Hill, Smith's neighbor for two years. "There was nothing I could do. Here was my friend, and my friend was dying, and I just felt like, 'what can I do?' "
Smith suffers from a relapse of Hodgkins disease, a cancer that is attacking her neck, chest, abdomen and right lung. To treat the cancer, Smith has endured extensive chemotherapy, sometimes for seven hours a day, five days a week. Throughout the process, a bone marrow transplant was required, as well as other painful and expensive procedures. She has found herself unsure of the future and facing more than $1 million in hospital bills.
"I don't know if I can earn a million dollars, but I can try to do whatever I can," Hill said. "Every dime to this family is going to be very much needed."
Hill started by calling her neighbors to ask them to hold on to whatever odds and ends they had found from their spring cleaning. From there, support for the cause spread like wildfire to surrounding neighborhoods. From older ladies on her street who offered to cook brownies and cookies to young women in the community who volunteered to wash cars, people who wanted to contribute something "came out of the woodwork," Hill said.
Although Hill ignited the excitement, she needed to find someone else to host the event because her street wouldn't allow it. Luckily, she found Maureen Beck.
As a two-time cancer survivor, Beck didn't have to ask permission to volunteer her cul-de-sac, especially since most of her neighbors are her children. Beck had befriended Smith when she learned of her medical situation, offering the support and encouragement that comes from experience.
"She's such a sweet little thing," Beck said. "She's been through so much, and she's had such a positive attitude."
That positive attitude is one thing Smith attributes to her survival thus far. She said she is determined to fight to the end, to survive and raise her 2-year-old daughter, Madison.
"You just can't take day-to-day life for granted," Smith said. "You have to make the best of everything."
Smith's fragile condition requires her to stay close to the hospital, which will prevent her from attending the garage sale, but she said she is feeling the support from a distance.
"It's just a comfort that they're there," Smith said.
The garage sale will take place starting at 7 a.m. Saturday morning at 146 N. 780 West in Lehi.
E-mail: achoate@desnews.com