Kiwanis raffle will raise funds for community projects

In December, Kiwanis president Sean Davis presented a $7,000 check to Monica Schwab, the community Outreach Coordinator for Lawrence County DD. The check went to help with the construction of a playground at the Open Door School. (Submitted Photo)

The Kiwanis Club of Greater Ironton is having a fundraiser to help kids in the community by offering a chance to travel.

The Kiwanis fundraiser is a vacation raffle where people can buy a ticket for $25 to have a chance to go to Disney World or Universal Studios theme park in Orlando, Florida.

“We have the lofty goal of selling 400 tickets before the drawing on July 8,” explained Kiwanis club member Brad Bear. “It is really good odds with 400 tickets, and there are 13 prizes.”

People also have a chance to win one of 10 $25 prizes or $250 or $400. The grand prize, valued at $4,000, is a certificate to Middle of the Magic Travel Agency.

“You can do a Disney vacation or a Universal vacation or mix the two. You can do a cruise. It’s a really good prize. This is a fun way to travel,” Bear said. “We are making sure to try to capture as many dollars from people who have a few extra bucks and want to take a chance on winning something. And then we divert that money into help kids.”

The July 8 drawing will be part of a community picnic at Etna Park in Ironton.

“It’s on a Thursday evening after the Fourth of July, so we just decided to make it a community cook out, get everyone together, have a good time and then do the drawings,” Bear said.

By selling 400 tickets, the Kiwanis club will raise $5,000.

“That is going into the Services Fund and then we can immediately start helping pumping that back into the community and kids, especially in the summer.” Bear said. “The rule is every dollar we fundraise with the Kiwanis name has to go out to a service project. The fundraisers we do, all that money goes back into the community.

Tickets are available at irontonkiwanis.org or from club members.

The Kiwanis Club of Ironton started last year with a mission of helping children. Their first fundraiser was to help the Open Door School complete its playground after the school was moved from Ironton to Coal Grove.

“They didn’t have much of a playground, it was small, it had one swing set. The kids had to wait in line during recess,” Bear said. “So, the funding Open Door school gets from the levy, literally funds operations. That’s it.”

Since there was no money for extras like a better playground equipment, the Kiwanis chose as their service project raising funds to complete Phase I of the playground.

“We took on the lofty goal of finishing the playground,” Bear said. “We had no idea how long it would take us.”

In December, they presented Open Door School with $9,000 check, with $7,000 coming from Kiwanis and $2,000 from a grant.

The Kiwanis will continue to raise funds to finish the project.