By Carrie Petersen
Albany Democrat-Herald | Posted: Tuesday, August 7, 2007 12:00 am
Mike Gunderson and his mom, Renay Siegwarth, have been overwhelmed by the community's response to their benefit garage sale.
Gunderson, 19, of Millersubrg has been trying to pay medical bills associated with two emergency brain surgeries to repair a failed shunt last March. He has hydrocephalus caused by a tumor.
The garage sale to help raise money to pay for the expenses was held Friday and Saturday at their Millersburg home.
Buyers and donors gave more than $3,000, Siegwarth said, 10 times more than what she was hoping for.
On Monday, she was paying some of Gunderson's bills.
At the sale, a woman bought a $2 item, paid with a $100 bill and said to keep the change. Two girls in Jefferson held a car wash and raised $500. Checks came in the mail from as far away as Eugene after a TV station picked up on a story in the D-H and did a report on Gunderson. In Lebanon, an adult foster home took a collection and raised $700.
Siegwarth said that she received a good-luck note with $20 in the mail. She looked at the return address to write a thank you and saw that it was her address.
They also received items - everything from exercise equipment to dishes to a handmade rug - for the sale. One woman brought food for Siegwarth and her family.
There were some items left over from the sale, and Siegwarth is making arrangements to donate them to local charities.
: toys to a Corvallis preschool, books to a credit union that sells them and gives the proceeds to Doernbecher Children's Hospital, and other items to a homeless shelter and a domestic violence program.