MONTICELLO — While yard sales sprung up all over Monticello during the annual citywide garage sale event last Thursday through Saturday, one in particular benefitted a special cause that is near and dear to a local family.
The Stachowicz family turned their garage and front yard on Hilltop Drive into a lively fundraiser for Pete’s Blankets of Hope, the nonprofit organization run by matriarch Sandie Stachowicz in remembrance of her son, Peter Stachowicz, a victim of brain cancer.
“My son died from a brain tumor at the age of 25,” she said, explaining that, while he was a cancer patient battling the disease, he received a handmade gift that moved him greatly.
“Somebody donated a blanket and he took it and was so happy that someone who didn’t even know him would take the time to make something for him,” Sandie said.
“That blanket kept him warm in the cold Minnesota winter and kept him cozy during his naps after radiation treatments,” reads information on the Pete’s Blankets of Hope website.
After his passing in 2019, his family took inspiration from that original blanket and what it represented to Pete, creating a nonprofit that offers support, comfort and hope to local cancer patients through donations of homemade, crocheted blankets.
“We have donated 356 blankets to date,” Sandie said. “The blankets get donated to the Monticello Cancer Center, CentraCare in St. Cloud, Mayo Clinic in Rochester and the Maple Grove Cancer Center.”
Crocheting all those blankets takes massive amounts of yarn — each one uses roughly 40 ounces of fiber — and that’s where the annual “Go Gray in May Brain Cancer Awareness Garage Sale Fundraiser” comes in.
“To help with my grief, we decided to do this garage sale every year to raise money to buy yarn to make the blankets,” Sandie said.
It’s also an appropriate time of year, given that May is Brain Cancer Awareness Month.
The three-day fundraiser, now in its second year, is a team effort, calling on the talents of Sandie’s family, friends and volunteers from the The Peter Stachowicz Foundation.
Daughter Amanda Stachowicz serves as treasurer, and was also manning the cash register, helping shoppers check out.
“Last year, we made about $2,000,” she said, noting their goal this year was to exceed that. “I would like to bring in $3,000 this year.”
In the end, they nearly met that goal, collecting a total of $2,800 in this year’s fundraiser.
All manner of goods were for sale — with everything from clothes to tools to kitchenware to toys and crocheted items on offer — and all of it donated by locals.
“Everything here has been donated by people from Monticello and Big Lake,” said John Stachowicz, Sandie’s husband and Pete and Amanda’s father.
Shopper Mona Brenny was impressed with the selection, and the low prices, leaving with an armload of merchandise.
“This is a great sale,” she said. “We were kind of surprised at how nice the prices are.”
But this was more than just your run-of-the-mill garage sale.
Parked in the driveway, the bright purple Adventure Yarn truck came all the way from Arkansas to sell specialty hand-dyed yarn in a kaleidoscope of colors along with tools and accessories. The business donated half of all its sales to Pete’s Blankets of Hope.
In addition, at the end of the driveway, parked along the street, the Buffalo-based Adventure Bowls food truck was peddling its signature organic, superfood and açaí smoothie bowls. There was also free coffee donated by Caribou, along with gifts for kids.
Adventure Yarn turned out to be a big draw, luring shoppers from far and wide, including several out-of-towners on Thursday who said they had come from Alexandria, Rice and Minneapolis specifically for the mobile yarn store.
Another visitor to the opening day of the fundraiser on Thursday wasn’t a shopper at all, but was instead an honoree who came to collect her crown.
Maddie Hanson, a 23-year-old brain cancer survivor from Big Lake, stopped by with her mom and dad, Kris and Tom Hanson.
The Stachowicz family had a glittering crown awaiting her, along with a sash, dubbing her the foundation’s first-ever ambassador, a year-long honor.
The 2019 Big Lake High School graduate has been battling brain cancer for nearly five years now, and it’s left her wheel-chair bound, with severe memory loss and total dependency on her parents for care, along with losing most of the functioning on her left side.
Maddie accepted her ambassadorship with a big smile, the pink streaks in her hair catching the afternoon sunlight.
“She’s been a trooper since day one,” said her father, Tom Hanson.
Mom Kris agreed, explaining that, although a brain tumor has forever changed her daughter’s life, robbing her of normalcy and the bright future she had planned, Maddie remains grateful for all she has.
“She has never complained, ever, even after all she’s gone through,” she said.
Kris said they don’t know what caused Maddie’s brain tumor, which was discovered when she started having headaches six weeks after graduating from high school.
“It could happen to anybody, you just don’t know,” she said. “And you have to be grateful for what you have left.”
Sandie picked out “Peter’s Garden,” an aqua, purple and pink flower lap blanket for Maddie to take home.
Earlier, she explained that she gives each blanket a name, always with Pete in mind.
“Every single one I name,” she said. “I name them after sports or places he traveled to, food he liked, an inside joke.”
One blanket she dubbed Pink Candy Floss, which is what cotton candy is called in Great Britain.
“Pete studied abroad in England for a semester, so I said I have to name this pink one Cotton Candy Floss.”
For more information on Pete’s Blankets of Hope, including how to donate or to request a blanket, visit the website at https://petesblankets.com.
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