Sarasota resident donates $1,400 to bone-cancer patient

Luella Crofut is a hard woman to pin down. If the 81-year-old — who grew up milking cows on her family’s farm in Ohio — is not out cultivating soil with her rototiller, taking care of her cows or cooking, there’s a good chance she’s doing whatever she can to help someone else.

“Whatever moves her, whatever the need is, she just jumps in,” said Crofut’s daughter, Kim Elmenani. “I often say if I have half the energy at half her age, I would be thrilled, because she’s amazing. She’s go-go-go.”

Crofut had been collecting garage sale items for more than a year and storing them in a warehouse. She had planned to have a garage sale in November. But when her granddaughter, Sophie Elmenani, came home from school talking about Ashley Kruger, her classmate at Sarasota Military Academy who had just been diagnosed with a rare bone cancer, Crofut decided to host the garage sale in Kruger’s honor.

She fastened a beat-up sign to a tiny garbage can that announced all proceeds from the garage sale would benefit Kruger. Kruger and Sophie Elmenani, both juniors at SMA, became friends two years ago in JROTC.

“I’m a giving person,” Crofut said. “I know when you go to the hospital, you have so many bills that money doesn’t take care of everything. I thought it was a good move on my part to give everything from the sale to Ashley.”

She ran her garage sale from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. every day for 10 days, at Fruitville Grove, which her daughter owns. People came and people bought. Others stopped by just to make a donation. When the sale ended, Crofut had collected $1,400.

Crofut presented the money to Kroger Wednesday, Dec. 14, at Sarasota Military Academy.
“It was terrible for me,” Crofut said. “I got emotional and I cried in front of everybody. Thinking about it now, I’m crying. Ashley was floored. She couldn’t believe it.”

Contact Loren Mayo at [email protected]