Smith: Toyworks, other merchants make Saturday ‘Shop for Olivia Day’

Shopping or eating Saturday at any of several local businesses, most of them of the Sebastopol persuasion, could be not only therapeutic but life-saving.

This will be Shop for Olivia Day. It began with John and Marilyn Goehring, founders of Sonoma County’s landmark Toyworks stores, offering to donate a portion of the day’s sales receipts to Olivia Weber.

Olivia is the 2008 Analy High grad who is severely ill with blood clots, paralysis of the stomach and other ailments that have eluded a diagnosis or effective treatment strategy.

Her mother, longtime Sonoma County resident Helen Weber, is working to raise the money necessary to take Olivia by car - her conditions make it unsafe for her to fly - to the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota and perhaps to other medical institutions known for advanced diagnosis and treatment of critical diseases.

Several other local retailers have joined the Goehrings, who will donate to the Webers 10 percent of Saturday’s sales at the Toyworks stores in Santa Rosa and Sebastopol.

Also participating in the one-day benefit for Olivia Weber are these Sebastopol businesses: Screamin’ Mimi’s Ice Cream, Rosemary’s Garden, Jasper O’Farrell’s Pub & Restaurant, Milk & Honey, Main Street Mercantile, Glassfusion and Pottery Too, and Dressers.

At Dressers, co-owner Tessa Grul said an entire selection of bracelets will be on sale Saturday. Tessa and her mother and Dressers partner, Mary, will donate 100 percent of proceeds from the bracelet sales to Olivia’s quest for a cure.

The Weber’s appeal for donations to the cross-country medical journey is at:

http://www.gofundme.com/p3d2n8