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Tuesday, October 15, 2024
Hundreds turn out to support Hawley family’s sale of treasures








More than 400 people queued up on Saturday morning to support the Hawley family’s sale of some of Liz Hawley’s belongings, who died tragically in a car crash in 2020.

“People started lining up at 8:30 in the morning and it went until 1:30 p.m. There was a lineup snaking through the whole place, so it was great, “ Brianne Hawley said on Sunday at the warehouse on York Road.

All money raised at the sale was donated to Rising Angels.

“Rising Angels, it was my mother-in-law Liz Hawley’s favourite charity organization. She used to donate a lot of the profit from her jewelry line, called Jewelry for Justice, to them,” Brianne Hawley said.

“Rising Angels is an organization that helps and supports women leaving the sex trade or who have been exploited in some way.”

When John Hawle’s Village development was under construction, Liz was in charge of staging the homes. The items for sale were things she used for the stagings.

“Liz had been in this warehouse for years before she passed away,” Hawley said.

“Since then, all of her beautiful treasures that she used for staging model homes and for staging weddings had been here.”

“We decided about three months ago that we were going to start trying to clear things out and we decided that all the proceeds of everything in the warehouse would go to Rising Angels in her honour.”

Much of the inventory was gone by Sunday, but a few treasures remained.

“We’re going to start donating items to thrift stores, missions, ReStore, places like that,” Hawley said.

“We’re not going to be having any more public sales and we may be giving some stuff away for free, but we did sell most of the items.”

While there may have been some measure of catharsis in supporting such an important cause with Liz’s staging items, she said it also dredged up some of the pain of the loss.

Liz Hawley was killed on Niagara Stone Road when another car crossed the centre line and hit her vehicle head-on.

“It brought up a lot of stuff but it also reminded us how much Liz loved to give, she had so many beautiful treasures,” Hawley said.

“And the fact that we could put all the proceeds towards Rising Angels really lifted our spirits.”

If you would like to do something in honour of Liz Hawley’s memory, the family suggests donations to Rising Angels at https://risingangels.net/.

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