Yard sale customers collect over $50K for vet’s funeral

BROWNSTOWN, Pa. — Two friends who set up a GoFundMe page for a Pennsylvania man who’d been holding yard sales to pay for his own funeral expenses say they’ve received so many donations that they are planning to help other veterans in similar situations.

David Dunkleberger and Ed Sheets pulled into a yard sale in Brownstown last month. The man running it, 66-year-old Willie Davis, said he was selling his belongings to pay for his funeral.

Davis, who served in the Navy in the 1970s, was diagnosed with stage 4 squamous cell carcinoma, a type of skin cancer.

The cancer was initially misdiagnosed last year, Davis told the Tribune-Democrat newspaper. After a biopsy revealed he had squamous cell carcinoma, Davis was told it had spread into his bones.

Dunkleberger initially set a $6,000 goal then raised it to $40,000. By Friday morning, over $50,000 had been donated.

Because of the large number of donations, GoFundMe asked him to include more information about their mission to help Davis, he wrote on the page. He said 100 percent of the funds raised will go to Davis’ funeral and burial costs.

A second update, after the goal was raised to $40,000 on Thursday, said they would keep raising the goal to help other veterans with funeral costs.

Davis has a burial plot near his parents’ at a cemetery in Culpeper, Virginia, and said he wishes to be interred there.

Dunkleberger told the Tribune-Democrat he’s been talking with Davis’ oldest sister to determine how much it will cost to have him transported to Virginia, prepared for burial and then laid to rest.

Davis told the newspaper he was stunned by the help.

He said he doesn’t expect to make it until Christmas and tries to escape negative thoughts by listening to music or watching deer graze in the yard outside his home.

“Sometimes, you don’t stop to appreciate those types of things until you know they won’t last forever,” Davis said. “I’d love to have more of them.”

John Rucosky The Associated Press Willie Davis, a U.S. Navy veteran who is dying from cancer, sits in his garage Wednesday among many of his belongings, which he’s trying to sell to help pay for his funeral, in Johnstown, Pa.