Sara Berghuis slips a wooden sign into her car before nearly every errand, never sure exactly where it will end up. Sometimes it rides along for days or weeks. Then, in a quiet moment, spotting a scenic roadside pull-off, meeting a stranger whose smile feels right, or simply following a gut feeling, she places it where someone might discover it.

The signs are free, mostly. Hand-painted on scrap wood, they carry messages of hope, patriotism, kindness and encouragement. In the six and a half years since she began, Sara estimates she has created nearly 3,000 of them. Only about 200 have been sold. The rest have been left throughout Marion and Lake County for anyone to claim.

“I had made a handful of signs and didn’t know what to do with them,” Sara says. “So I started putting them in random places to try and see if I could get people to take them if they liked it.”

It began as a personal tribute after her grandfather’s death. It’s a real-life treasure hunt with wooden treasures that have brightened birthdays, lifted bad days and reminded residents that small acts of kindness still exist.

Sara, who will turn 44 in August, was born and raised in South Florida’s Pembroke Pines in Broward County. She moved to her father’s hunting camp in the Ocklawaha area on April 1, 2006, seeking a quieter life away from city noise. She has now lived in the area for 20 years. Married for 16 years, she and her husband are raising two children: daughter Lily, who will turn 16 in September and son Dustin, who turned 13 last month.

For the past 15 years, Sara has been a stay-at-home mom, a role she calls a blessing. She returned to work just two weeks ago, stepping back into the workforce while maintaining her evening ritual in the garage.

“I’m just a mom who has been home the last 15 years having the blessing to raise my kids,” she says. “At home after dinner and time with the family I venture off into my garage and do my thing.”

The hobby traces directly to November 2019. Sara’s grandfather had recently passed away, and she wanted to create something meaningful in his memory.

“I wanted to make an American flag wooden cross in memory of him,” she says.

That first project sparked something in her. After a local construction crew asked to use her hose to finish a concrete job across her street, she asked the workers if she could have scrap wood from their site to which they agreed. One small stack of discarded lumber became the foundation for everything that followed.

“For starters I’ve never paid for wood to make my signs since I started,” Sara says. “I use all scrap wood. This is partially how it all started. I grabbed a stack of wood from their garbage pile and gave it a go. That’s how I started to get the wood to make the signs and I ran with it.”

Her husband taught her the basics, including how to use a skill saw an experience that initially terrified her.

“My husband showed me how to use the skill saw which scared the crap out of me at first but I got good at it,” she says. “With a few tricks I learned the rest by trial and error.”

With no formal training and no classes, Sara uses persistence, music blasting in the garage and lets her mood guide the work.

“I turn my music system on in my garage so loud I completely zone out,” Sara explains. “Whatever I am feeling inside kind of comes out. It all depends on the mood I am in. I can knock out 10 signs in a few hours or really take my time on a piece that I dream an entire picture of some kind and it takes a day or two.”

The messages reflect whatever she is processing. Hope on tough days, gratitude on holidays, patriotism rooted in family military service. Her father, grandfather and other relatives are all veterans, which helps ignite a particular passion for patriotic designs.

“I enjoy making the patriotic ones because Veterans Day, Memorial Day, New Year’s, 4th of July etc.,” Sara says. “I always make a good handful of those days specifically. I’ve spent those days making sure that I’ve had a dozen ready and spent a few hours putting them out random places just for something to do because those days are special.”

On Veterans Day, she has driven from Ocala to Umatilla and beyond, deliberately placing these signs in honor of veterans. Living near what she calls the retirement capital of the world makes those gestures feel especially meaningful.
The placement process is intuitive rather than strategic.

“Honestly I never leave home without one in my car of some kind,” she says. “I’ll even hang on to one for a while and randomly just feel it inside, meet a person or come across a really neat place and if it just feels right I run with.”

And the signs have made it all around the world as well including military bases in Hawaii and North Carolina and even to a small town in England.

“A woman in England found a sign in Weirsdale when she was visiting and found it a few years back and sent me a photo of her with it on her wall,” says Sara. “I’m meeting that same person in about two weeks for the first time.”

While the wood is free, the rest of it does cost money. Paint, stencils, Dremel bits, sandpaper, polyurethane and other supplies add up, covered entirely from her own pocket. She has taken custom orders in the past but found the pressure to make them perfect stressful.

“For me it’s never been about the money because I’ve made some amazing signs that I have even surprised myself when they’re done,” Sara says. “I do all of this out of my own pocket and it’s not cheap. But I have never asked anyone for anything in return.”

She has received occasional donations and scrap wood from appreciative people, which helps sustain the effort. A handful of people have even joined the “treasure hunt,” relocating signs to new public spots and experiencing the same adrenaline rush she feels.

“I encourage people sometimes to open up and have the courage to find one of my signs and relocate it,” she says. “If they do, find a public piece with a bunch of people around. When they put it out that adrenaline rush I get is insane and it’s hard to describe unless you try it yourself. A few people have and they know exactly what I mean.”

The feedback from finders has been the most rewarding part and often the most surprising.

“I’m completely blown away from all the love and just KIND words people are saying,” Sara says. “I know deep down I’ve made a small mark in my community with them from all ages.”

Parents have messaged her about finding a sign on a difficult day, exactly when they needed encouragement. Others discovered one on a birthday their own, a child’s or a spouse’s and felt it was meant to be.

“I’ve gotten messages saying it was their kids birthday or a spouse’s birthday or their own and they found a sign and it was meant for them. That’s pretty darn amazing in my book,” she says.

When someone finds a sign, Sara often doesn’t know about it. Roughly 90 percent of the signs disappear without contact, taken quietly by people who simply like them. That silent satisfaction has sustained her for years.

“I’ve been doing this a long time and mostly I don’t know where these have ended up,” she says. “A lot of people take them and don’t look me up. That silent satisfaction has been good enough for me. The ones that I do get messages from, posts, comments, and pictures from that definitely gives me a boost and the drive to keep doing this.”

On difficult days, when she feels down, numb or overwhelmed, the garage becomes her refuge.

“I’ve had some pretty rough days and when I’m down, feeling numb, or feeling nothing at all, I work on my signs and I don’t think,” Sara explains. “It’s a hobby I knew nothing about but I’ve somehow made it my own. I found something for me. It helps me decompress and it makes me happy. I don’t know how a sign is going to turn out until I’m done.”

Her hope is that her own struggles might connect with someone else’s.

The project has remained largely under the radar until recently. However when we contacted her, she says the attention has left her somewhat speechless.

“Lake and Sumter Style Magazine reaching out to me because you came across what I’m doing in some way has kind of got me speechless,” she says. “I would have never thought it would be a big deal because you kind of only see this stuff on social media and TV. I know what I’m doing is real. Just didn’t think that it would catch that many people’s attention.”

But Sara is having a bigger impact than she ever could know. It’s a community that needed something like this. It’s a small act of kindness that’s had far bigger impacts than anyone could have thought possible. All brought to life through scrap material, a creative heart and a message of hope.