Craven demonstrates its charitable side
CRAVEN — At last year’s Craven Country Jamboree, someone won $29,682.50 — but has no idea.
The Sunday 50-50, drawn July 13 last year, was never claimed.
If nobody comes forward to collect the winnings in the next two days, the money will be donated back to community groups.
Jason Kelln has been co-chair of the Craven 50-50 fundraiser for more than 10 years, and says it’s not unusual for such a large amount of cash to go unclaimed.
“In the hustle and bustle of the night, especially the last night, you’ve got a huge headlining act, and ... quite literally, the tickets go in the air and people don’t always check,” he said.
“It happens. That’s the nature of this beautiful place.”
Each year, headed up by the Queen City Kinsmen, volunteers take to the festival grounds peddling 50-50 tickets to raise money for charities including Big Brothers, the Regina Music Festival, the Regina Regional Science Fair, sledge hockey tournaments, wheelchair basketball and the local branch of the Canadian Diabetes Foundation.
Those volunteers come from a host of Saskatchewan charities, and kinsmen and kinette groups.
Wearing their fluorescent orange shirts, trudging through the beating hot sun or boggy mud, they bring campers the chance of winning thousands of dollars.
On Friday, with the temperature hovering around 32 C, Margaret Manz and Denise Curts were doing the rounds in the gold camping area.
Many campers had already bought up tickets, others were biding their time, waiting for the mythical best time to buy a ticket — which Manz is pretty sure doesn’t exist. “It’s all random,” she said. Over at one camper, people were waiting for friends to turn up so they could pool their cash and get more numbers.
“Others will buy some tickets first thing in the morning, then later they’ll get more so their numbers are spread out,” Manz explained.
She and Curts continued their walk, sporadically yelling out “5050!” as they passed by campsites.
“We’ve already got ours, thank you,” one group called back to them.
“Great, good luck,” Manz yelled back. The campers replied with a laugh, saying “We’ll take all the luck we can get.”
According to Kelln, the most “amazing” part of the whole 5050 experience “is when you give someone a cheque for $20,000.”
And while he may not love the limelight, Kelln said, “When you walk out on stage and make that draw, and you’ve got 15,000 people and a mic and people are focused on you, you can see why artists get the rush.”
With close to $30,000 still up for grabs, you’d be well-advised to check your tickets from last year — if you can find them. The winning number was 308771.