Mike Artz and his daughter, MiquelaRae Artz, were accumulating furniture, clothes, and other donated items over the past couple of months as they planned a rummage giveaway.
"Then the flood hit, and that was the sign to do it," Mike Artz said.
So, two weeks after major flooding devastated neighborhoods throughout the Milwaukee area and left at least two dead, their family's nonprofit group, Live Laugh Loaves MKE, organized the giveaway.
The event, dubbed a F-Rummage Sale, as in "free rummage," drew about 300 people on Aug. 22-23 to Oklahoma Avenue Lutheran Church, where the Artz family worships.
Along with people affected by the Aug. 16-17 floods, the F-Rummage Sale attracted others in need.
In keeping with the Live Laugh Loves MKE ethos, no questions were asked of those taking clothes, toys, furniture, and other household items.
The organization had accumulated two households of items earlier this year. It then put out the word on social media for additional donations ahead of the F-Rummage Sale.
"We had so much stuff accumulate so fast," Artz said.
Artz is a former sales and marketing manager who retired with a disability after a car crash. His 19-year-old daughter is an Alverno College student taking pre-med courses.
The rummage giveaway grew out of the main mission of Live Laugh Loaves MKE, which the Artz family launched a year ago after their church received a donation of several packaged bread loaves.
The group's volunteers pick up packaged breads, buns, bagels, cookies, and other bakery products from wholesale distributors who would otherwise toss the goods because of their sell-by dates, Artz said. That includes such well-known brands as Sara Lee, Brownberry, and Pepperidge Farm.
They did their first giveaway of bread in August 2024 at the Milwaukee Police Department District 6 National Night Out community event.
Live Laugh Loaves MKE then began weekly distributions at Oklahoma Avenue Lutheran Church, 5335 W. Oklahoma Ave.
The current schedule runs through December, with the next giveaway of bread set for Aug. 29, from 3 to 5 p.m.
Artz estimates the group gives away 6,000 to 7,000 items each week.
He said the privately funded group, which just received its 501(c)(3) nonprofit status from the Internal Revenue Service, gets "a lot of the working poor" waiting in line for bread and other goods.
Live Laugh Loaves MKE is always looking for more volunteers and donations, Artz said.
"Our need is bigger than our supply right now," he said.
The nonprofit group can be reached at [email protected].
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