By Pepper Parr
September 20th, 2017
BURLINGTON, ON
It was pretty close to a last minute idea for the Lakeshore Rotary people who put on the annual RibFest – they’ve been doing that for decades.
They had never done a 50/50 draw before – it sounded like a good idea – so they went for it.
It was an astounding success – with less than nothing in the way of promotion the thing just took off – the line ups on the Sunday and Monday were too long for some people – they gave up and went home.
David Wilson didn’t give up.
Wilson, a Hamilton resident, was at Ribfest and bought a ticket on the Friday . He was with a bunch of his friends who were Ribbers – wilson is a Ribber himself – runs Bibs and has been taking part in the Burlington event for at lat ten years.
He spent $20 in 50/50 tickets – that turned out to be a heck of an investment.
When he got the telephone call saying he had wone he was sure it was a prank call from one of his Ribber buddies
Dave and his wife Lisa attended the Rotary lunch yesterday to accept their cheque. Dave, who couldn’t stop smiling, was thoroughly enjoying himself.
The Rotary got their permit to hold the event days before the RibFest opened. They had to call in every member they could find to sell the tickets – but sell then they did – $50,570 worth of tickets of which Dave Wilson got $25,285
The Rotary will certainly be doing this event next year.
The winning ticket is drawn randomly from all the tickets that are purchased and the winner has to be able to identify themselves as the person whose name is on the ticket.
The Lakeshore Rotary will certainly be doing this again next year.
Thank you so much for coming out and covering this story for us. We are all so happy for David & Lisa as our first winners of the 50/50 raffle and hope next years jackpot will be larger . Rotary Burlington Lakeshore will be spending our 50% minus the admin and lotttery fees on local community projects.