Chris Smith: That web thing works, so say the ladies of Santa Rosa’s Welfare League

Such a call never before rattled the phone at the thrift store in Railroad Square that's run, fastidiously, by members of the Welfare League.

Two heiresses in the South Bay had cleaned out an estate that was in their family for five generations. They'd given to relatives all of the personal effects they cared to have.

The caller to the Welfare League shop said she and the second woman had packed up all the remaining items from the house. Then the two of them set out to find the best possible nonprofit thrift store to which to donate everything.

The shop's Earlene Reichert says the women went online to look for a local, independent charity that's run entirely by volunteers and that uses thrift-store proceeds to improve the lives of children.

The pair's search engine led them to the website that the generally silvered volunteers of the 77-year-old Welfare League had created just last year. The site mentions League programs that include Christmas Unlimited, which each year provides gifts of new clothing, toys and books to more than 2,000 needy Sonoma County kids.

Reichert said she and the shop's other volunteers are pretty sure this is the first time that www.welfareleague.org brought in a donation.

And, oh, what a donation it is. The women from the South Bay rented a van and delivered to the store 37 neatly packed cartons, the front of each bearing a photo of the items inside.

Among the bounty: Clothing from as far back as the 1940s, crystalware, fine china and a collection of nice men's pipes.

“It's beautiful stuff, and they wouldn't even take a tax receipt,” Earlene Reichert said. “It'll take us a year to sell it all.”

And to think, those donors found the Welfare League store, founded in 1939, on the Internet.

Riechert said she and all the ladies are feeling “like we've really come into the technological age.”

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WHO RIDES A BIKE at the Sonoma Raceway? Next week, we all can.

From 5 to 8 p.m. on July 14, cars will be sidelined at the course, site of Tony Stewart's recent thriller of a win in the NASCAR Sprint Cup race, and cyclists of all ages will be invited to crank ‘em up.

Advance tickets for “Bike the Track,” an ingenious fundraiser for the foundations serving Sonoma County Regional Parks and Sonoma Valley Hospital, are available at brownpapertickets.com. Tickets will be sold at the gate. too.

In addition to the rare opportunity to pedal on the race track, there will be live rock music and a kids' Bike Rodeo.

Waving the green flag to start “Bike the Track” will be TV journalist and lover of the outdoors, Doug McConnell.

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ON THE VERY BAD DAY of Sept. 4, 2014, fire wrecked much of Frank and Theresa Christ's Cloverdale home.

When I spoke with Frank Christ earlier this week, the retired postman seemed to be having every bit as bad a day, maybe worse. “I don't want to lose this house,” he said.

It's been largely rebuilt, but Christ said hardships that include the cost of being long displaced have left his family broke and in debt. He said that unless he and his wife come up with $2,600 for a past-due property tax bill by July 14, the house will be foreclosed.

The Christs tell their story in an appeal at gofundme.com/firevictims2014.

Chris Smith is at 521-5211 and chris.smith@pressdemocrat.com.