“I’m blown away,” said Steve Abercrombie, a city councilman who helped organize the event at the Tracy Transit Station. “We had well over 300 people come through there. It was supposed to end at noon, but so many people kept coming. People were still coming when we were packing up (at 2 p.m.).”
The yard sale for Sherley Villagomez and her family raised more than $9,000 in the course of a few hours. In addition to people making purchases and donating items for the sale, Abercrombie said the girl’s father received $300 in donations, and Sherley earned $300 selling homemade cupcakes.
“We were shocked,” said Diana Villagomez, Sherley’s mother. “The response of the people — very, very nice to see people care. She really liked selling her cupcakes. It was pretty awesome.
“It’s going to help a lot, take a lot off our shoulders,” she added. “We appreciate everybody that put together the garage sale and made it possible, and everybody that donated stuff and donated their time and came. I have no words to explain how it felt for us. A lot of people came and said, ‘We’re praying for you guys.’ (Sherley) felt love.”
Abercrombie said there were so many donations of items that the volunteers made 15 trips with a pickup to gather all of them.
Because so many people just wanted to contribute to the family, most paid more than double the ticket price of an item. He said one man paid $100 for a $1 purchase.
Also donated to the family were gift cards for a variety of restaurants to help the family with food costs when they take Sherley to the Bay Area for medical treatments.
Recent grad attains honor roll
Morgan M. Jong, a 2011 Tracy High School graduate, has earned academic kudos while competing as a midfielder for the women’s soccer team at University of California, San Diego.
Jong was named to the UCSD Athletic Director’s Gold Level Honor Roll for the fall term after achieving a GPA of 3.5 or better.
She is studying media communications at the university.
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