While many of us are anxiously awaiting an end to the year 2020 and all the obstacles that have been thrown our way this year, the Lord has still provided us with some opportunities during all of this difficulty. I remember back in the summer being disappointed that we weren’t able to do our normal parish festival in July. At the same time though, I was excited that we were, in a way, given a clean slate where we could try a different type of event. And,with most people understanding that it wasn’t possible to do our normal event, we wouldn’t have an angry mob come after us for changing things up!
And it worked! We got a ton of compliments over the weekend and everyone was grateful that we tried something this year, even if it was very different. It was fun and it also turned out to make a lot of money for the parish which was a great blessing! Our staff continues to be blown away by the generosity of our people, whether it’s through your support of our Sunday collection or through events like the festival this past summer.
That successful festival and the generosity of our people led me to start asking some different questions. Like if there were other things that we could do differently that people would respond well to. Especially with the festival raffles. Over the last eight years our money raffle has made just over $20,000 per year and the quilt/afghan just under $4,000 per year. Even the donations included with the raffle tickets have been around $3,000 per year, with this past summer setting a high at $7,150! That’s around $27,000 we get each year which is especially impressive considering that it doesn’t take a ton of work to accomplish!
In looking at these numbers, we naturally started to ask if the parish would support us if we decided to do another raffle. Do people support the festival because it’s a one year event and that’s all they’re willing to do? Would they support another one if it was for the right cause? Do our parishioners just like to gamble and they’ll participate in any raffle that we throw together? These are some of the questions we have been asking. In the end, we don’t know how people will respond until we give it a try!
As we started to realize that we would not be able to hold our MHT School Dinner Raffle this year as we normally do, we saw an opportunity to see if the raffle could help supplement that income. Located in the main entrance of the church are envelopes with tickets for each registered household in the parish. To be clear, there is no expectation that everyone should buy/sell these tickets. We would love to have a high level of participation but recognize that this is something new that we’re doing and for various reasons everyone might not be able to contribute.
The neat thing about this year’s school fundraiser is that it has many parts to it so each parishioner can decide for themselves where they might want to offer their support. I’ve mentioned the raffle already which will have the big money prizes of $2,500, $1,500, $1,000 and then ten people will win $100. We also have a set of hand-crafted Michigan-shaped adirondack chairs complete with a U.P.-shaped bench that we will raffle off. Both of those tickets are $5 each. Each envelope also contains one $100 ticket where the winner will receive one-year’s free MHT School tuition for one student. This can be applied to one or more student’s or family’s tuition or exchanged for $2,000 cash.
In addition to the raffle we are also having our MHT School Fall Family Fundraiser on Saturday, October 24th (More information on the cover) where we will have food trucks, silent auction items and live music! While we hope this will be a great fundraiser for the school, we’re also excited to have another opportunity for our parish community to get together and have some fun. So please consider joining us on October 24th and we thank you for all of the support you’ve given to our parish and school during this crazy year!
And it worked! We got a ton of compliments over the weekend and everyone was grateful that we tried something this year, even if it was very different. It was fun and it also turned out to make a lot of money for the parish which was a great blessing! Our staff continues to be blown away by the generosity of our people, whether it’s through your support of our Sunday collection or through events like the festival this past summer.
That successful festival and the generosity of our people led me to start asking some different questions. Like if there were other things that we could do differently that people would respond well to. Especially with the festival raffles. Over the last eight years our money raffle has made just over $20,000 per year and the quilt/afghan just under $4,000 per year. Even the donations included with the raffle tickets have been around $3,000 per year, with this past summer setting a high at $7,150! That’s around $27,000 we get each year which is especially impressive considering that it doesn’t take a ton of work to accomplish!
In looking at these numbers, we naturally started to ask if the parish would support us if we decided to do another raffle. Do people support the festival because it’s a one year event and that’s all they’re willing to do? Would they support another one if it was for the right cause? Do our parishioners just like to gamble and they’ll participate in any raffle that we throw together? These are some of the questions we have been asking. In the end, we don’t know how people will respond until we give it a try!
As we started to realize that we would not be able to hold our MHT School Dinner Raffle this year as we normally do, we saw an opportunity to see if the raffle could help supplement that income. Located in the main entrance of the church are envelopes with tickets for each registered household in the parish. To be clear, there is no expectation that everyone should buy/sell these tickets. We would love to have a high level of participation but recognize that this is something new that we’re doing and for various reasons everyone might not be able to contribute.
The neat thing about this year’s school fundraiser is that it has many parts to it so each parishioner can decide for themselves where they might want to offer their support. I’ve mentioned the raffle already which will have the big money prizes of $2,500, $1,500, $1,000 and then ten people will win $100. We also have a set of hand-crafted Michigan-shaped adirondack chairs complete with a U.P.-shaped bench that we will raffle off. Both of those tickets are $5 each. Each envelope also contains one $100 ticket where the winner will receive one-year’s free MHT School tuition for one student. This can be applied to one or more student’s or family’s tuition or exchanged for $2,000 cash.
In addition to the raffle we are also having our MHT School Fall Family Fundraiser on Saturday, October 24th (More information on the cover) where we will have food trucks, silent auction items and live music! While we hope this will be a great fundraiser for the school, we’re also excited to have another opportunity for our parish community to get together and have some fun. So please consider joining us on October 24th and we thank you for all of the support you’ve given to our parish and school during this crazy year!
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