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6th-grader helps out troops
EL PASO -- Hailey Prochnow, 11, isn’t about to put off doing something once she decides it’s important. That was pretty clear when she raised more than $380 by early Saturday afternoon in a garage sale to help American troops. When she read about a student who helped build a school in Vietnam, she was inspired to do something to make a difference. Her grandmother, Sue Ellen Prochnow, was pleased with her compassion. “Someday you can,” she told Hailey. “Someday” wasn’t soon enough for the El Paso-Gridley Junior High School sixth-grader, however. “I don’t want to wait until someday. I want to do it now,” she said. With the help of her grandparents, Bill and Sue Ellen Prochnow, she settled on the group she wanted to help, Give2TheTroops.org, and got started. Since 2002, the organization has sent more than 70,000 large boxes and more than 16 million letters and cards to about 1 million deployed U.S. troops. Hailey’s inspiration resulted in a giant garage sale on Saturday in front of the Prochnows’ Ivy Gardens floral shop and miniature golf business on U.S. 24 in downtown El Paso. Hailey welcomed shoppers on a sunny Friday and Saturday when she could have been camping with her family. That had to wait until her business was done. She priced merchandise, loaded carpets into cars, ran to get more empty bags, tallied money, and talked to shoppers. Hailey inspired others, including Smokey Lowe, an El Paso businessman who repairs old computers. He donated several repaired computers. “He made his third trip (dropping off donations) this morning,” Sue Ellen Prochnow said Saturday. At first Hailey wasn’t sure her effort would be a success. She made fliers and posted them through town for weeks, but the donations from the community came slowly at first. That was until Pantagraph columnist Bill Flick, intrigued with her effort, wrote a column that appeared in the newspaper Friday. “That certainly made a difference,” her grandmother said. “We got carloads of donations after that.” Her customers seemed to enjoy the low prices — most were a dollar or two — and the worthy cause. “I think it’s awesome. Anything we can do for our troops is well worth it,” said Alice Wood of El Paso, who picked out a couple of armfuls of bargains and added a monetary donation when she paid for them. Hailey hurried home from school at 3 p.m. Friday and started helping with the sale until the last customer left at 9 p.m. Before she called it a night, she had taken in $110 for the fist evening. “I was pretty tired,” she said. But that didn’t deter her from getting up early Saturday to sell some more. “I’m so very proud of her,” said her mother, Lori McCue. “She’s a smart little girl.” And Hailey isn’t done yet. She and her family plan to drag anything that didn’t sell Saturday back to the same spot on Sept. 22 during El Paso’s citywide garage sale to raise more money for Give2TheTroops.org. In the meantime she continues to collect donations in a big glass jar. E-mail this story | Print this story | Search archives | RSS Show comments |  Hide comments | Hide comments on all stories |
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