Officials at the Golden Acres Curling Club took a big gamble on a fundraiser to fix their roof earlier this year and now it's coming down to the final draw.
When the club started its Chase the Ace lottery back in February, organizers knew it could have ended the first week they sold tickets. Instead, they're now only about 1,200 tickets away from a complete sell-out, which would include handing out a grand prize of $30,000 for the person who draws the Ace of Spades.
"As an organizing committee, our greatest fear was, 'What if this doesn't make it far enough to gain some momentum and notoriety in our community?'" said Golden Acres Curling Club President Justin Van Horn. "We were certainly scared of that and realized that was one of the risks, but we're incredibly satisfied and gratified that it has made it this far."
The money that is raised by the contest will go toward paying for some much-needed roof upgrades at the curling club's building in Blenheim.
Van Horn said ever since they rebuilt the facility about 12 years ago following a devastating fire at their previous building, they have had problems with a section of the flat roof at the club. He said to remedy that, they are planning to change the flat roof section to a sloped roof, which will also require them to move some mechanical equipment.
The estimated cost for the work is $50,000 -- that's where the idea of a lottery draw fundraiser came in.
Van Horn said the contest was inspired by a couple of members at the curling club who were visiting Newfoundland and Labrador and saw how popular Chase the Ace lotteries are on the east coast.
Since the contest started 20 weeks ago, the curling club has sold more than 18,000 of their 20,000 tickets and their deck of cards has been pared down from 52 to 32. Van Horn said momentum is really picking up ahead of their final draw on Tuesday, July 2.
"We started this week with 5,000 tickets remaining and opened up our sales on Wednesday evening... almost 3,000 tickets got sold," said Van Horn, adding they've put some restrictions in place now that they are down to one final draw. "A person can buy a maximum of 10 tickets -- they're $5 each."
In addition to the possibility of a $30,000 grand prize, the group will be giving out a weekly prize of approximately $5,000 during Tuesday's draw, which will be carried live on the group's Facebook page.
"[The draw] could take anywhere from a few minutes to several minutes," said Van Horn. "In this last draw, the first person out of the drum will be the weekly winner and we will open their envelope first. That could contain the Ace of Spades... but if it doesn't, we will continue pulling tickets and opening envelopes."
Anyone who is interested in picking up some of the remaining tickets can buy them in person at the Golden Acres Curling Club in Blenheim at 430 Catherine Street in Blenheim on Saturday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
