On December 23rd the Rotary Club of Belize will be raffling a brand-new 2014 Toyota Hilux pick-up truck. It's one of their yearly fundraising events to support the organization's many charitable programs across the country. With only 1,000 tickets, the club plans on raising one hundred thousand dollars. Today we stopped in at mile 3 on the northern highway to check out the new ride and to find out where raffle tickets can be purchased.
Lynn Young, President - Rotary
"This is an exciting year for us because this year we are raffling a Toyota Hilux which as you know is a very popular pick up truck. We expect that we are going to get a lot of good response on this raffle and we are starting early this year. Tickets are already available and we are looking forward to a good response."
Monica Bodden
"How much are the tickets going for and what year is the vehicle?"
Lynn Young, President - Rotary
"It's a 2013 and the tickets are going for $100, but here is the thing; it's a limited edition raffle - We don't sell a lot of tickets, its limited to 1000 tickets and so you have a much better chance of winning than the everyday raffle that you might be doing. That's why its $100 per ticket."
Monica Bodden
"You guys plan to take the vehicle to different districts?"
Lynn Young, President - Rotary
"We are going to take it all over the country, so people can see what they can win. I expect that probably by the end of this month or the first week in December we will be sold out because last year we sold out pretty quickly, so if people really want to get into this they have to try and get their tickets early."
Monica Bodden
"Tell us where we can purchase these tickets?"
Lynn Young, President - Rotary
"Tickets can be purchased from any Rotarian. We have about 47 members of our club and there will be other places that we will have the tickets available that you can buy them. We will make advertisements over the air to tell people where they can get these tickets."
Monica Bodden
"Lastly, just tell us the reason why you guys do this raffle early?"
Lynn Young, President - Rotary
"This is the first major fundraising efforts. We also have a play that we do that also raises a lot of money. All the monies that we raise in Rotary goes into the projects that we have; we have lots of different very important projects; we have the "Gift of Life" project that send kids with heart problems to get medical attention in the US. Rotary started the BERT Ambulance service. Rotary has been involved in the Dorothy Menzies Child Care Center; we spent a lot of money there building that facility for orphans. We have school feedings programs, there are two schools where we help the kids to get a good meal and we would like to expand that if possible - there are just so many projects that Rotary do. We do the wheel chair project every year where we distribute wheel chairs to needy people in our community."
"Next year we are going to start a literacy project where we will help Restore Belize to bring education to children and adults who did not have an opportunity to complete school. As you know that's a bog issue in our community today and we are taking a lead in that. Rotary also started Crime Stoppers; that was also a project of Rotary that we started that has made a big difference in our community today. As you can see it's a lot of work that we do and every penny that we raise through these raffles, plays - everything goes to projects to help the community that we served."
As you heard, The vehicle will be raffled on the 23 of December. It's one hundred dollars for a ticket which can be purchased from any of the Rotarians.
