A Surprise Ending to the Kiwanis Club of Manassas Annual Fall Raffle
by Jen Weigel, President, Kiwanis Club of Manassas
I personally could not have written a better ending to our Club's largest fundraising project for the year. Our members worked extremely hard over about two months to plan this year's event held on Saturday, November 7th at the Four Points by Sheraton in Manassas, VA. This is the same location where we have our weekly Thursday 6:30 p.m. meetings, in case anyone wants to send an interclub our way!
Our members were extremely motivated to sell the 250 available tickets to our elimination raffle. Last year, the downturn in the economy took its toll on ticket sales, so we knew that extra effort was needed this time around. We sold tickets to a good mixture of "regulars" and a lot of raffle virgins. In addition to selling tickets, our members did an extraordinary job of obtaining door prizes from local community businesses. We ended up having over 25 door prizes to give away that night. You don't have to be present to win the cash prizes, but you do have to be at the event to win a door prize.
Each ticket entitles the buyer to bring a guest to the raffle. Food for the evening is served buffet style and guests also enjoyed an open bar. Soon after the Raffle got underway, we realized that we had actually run out of seats for guests. What a good problem to have. The staff of the Four Points rolled out another table quickly, and we were able to accommodate the entire room of about 130 guests, our largest turnout yet.
Throughout the night, our members worked everything from MC to scorekeeper to bookkeeper. We had other members work our 50/50 ticket sales and another in charge of our door prize drawings. All in all, I felt that our small club did an outstanding job of keeping our guests excited about the raffle.
When it came down to the last two numbers drawn, hardly anyone had left for the evening. They were still eager to figure out what the outcome would be. One of the last people standing was Charlie Rinker, a senior member in our Club who has consistently sold the most tickets for our event. The other person was not there, and since we were not able to contact him by phone, they couldn't split the last two cash prizes. We were forced to draw one last number from the raffle drum!
To be honest, I was rooting for Mr. Rinker to win. He was standing right in front of me waiting for the outcome, and he played such an important role in the success of our event. How could I not want him to win? Then, they pulled the last number, the number that would win the $500 instead of the grand prize. I was still holding my breath when they sadly announced Mr. Rinker's number, and we knew that the other person had won the $10,000 grand prize.
Just as we thought the night was over, Mr. Rinker asked for everyone's attention. He thanked everyone for sharing the night with our Club and mentioned that he knew the winner. It seemed that his intention was to have us donate his potential winnings to two local non-profits! At our next regular meeting, we had representatives from SERVE, Inc. http://www.serveinc.org/ and BARN http://www.barninc.org/home.aspx present to accept official checks. I know that the generosity of this winner (who wanted as little publicity as possible) has touched many lives.
