A Raffle is More Than a Fundraising Tool by Mariam Haq
A Raffle is More Than a Fundraising Tool by Mariam Haq
I’m the treasurer of a club called The Campus Kitchens Project at the
University of Vermont. The mission of our club is to provide meals to
the people at the Chittenden Emergency Food Shelf and the Winooski
Teen Center by using farm shares and other local food sources. Every
week we make a meal for around 60 people. We depend on the money
given to us by the university’s student government association, which
at times isn’t enough to meet our demanding food needs. Fundraising
is a large part of how we are able to support our program.
Every year, we host an event called The Battle of the Campus Chefs
where we partner with chefs from our school’s dining halls and clubs
to create small plates containing local ingredients. The audience
samples the dishes and then votes for their favorite dish. A huge
draw for the event is that we hold a raffle. This year we got raffle
prizes from local Vermont businesses such as gift certificates to
restaurants and wheels of cheese from Shelburne farms. We raised
almost $1700 from this fundraiser.
This money has been extremely helpful to our club because we can now
buy a fridge for our produce and get more food to cook with for the
food shelf. One of the reasons that this fundraiser was so successful
is that it had a community focus. The fact that we raffled prizes
from local business and the money raised is going to help the local
population really brought this fundraiser full circle. By eating the
food prepared by our chefs, the audience helped us provide the same
ideas of local food to the people at the food shelf.
This experience showed me the importance of fundraising and raffles.
Our raffle helped our community on two levels, by promoting local
businesses and by helping us provide food to our community members who
need it. This experience not only showed me how effective raffles can
be, but it also showed me how they can be customized to fit a specific
event and mission. Since our club is a food based club we had many
food based prizes. We still had the general idea of a raffle but we
personalized it to our community theme. This raffle is a crucial
component of why our club is still running.
Being a part of the leadership team for The Campus Kitchens Project
really gave me the gratifying experience of seeing the results of our
fundraising. In the summertime, school is out of session but we still
need to cook meals for the food shelf. More people come to eat at the
food shelf in the summer making it hard to always have robust meals
that provide adequate nutrition. This summer we have enough money not
only to buy ingredients for the meals, but to buy supplies to help our
club in the long run. The raffle was more than a fundraising tool, it
was a platform to showcase my community and the amazing products made
right in state. This raffle both showcased and supported my community.
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Contributed by Mariam Haq
October 2, 2015