Struggling to fund sports programs, Monte del Sol tries car raffle again
School holding another car raffle, combatting apathy, harsh realities of large fundraising target
Once again, Monte del Sol is using a raffle to help fund its athletics program, but it is taking a different approach from last school year. Yet it might be the same old cast who does the work. The school is coordinating its second car raffle to help fund its athletic department, but instead of aiming to sell 2,000 tickets at $50 a pop, it is opting to sell them at $20 in the hopes of selling 5,000 tickets.
There is a catch: It started selling tickets in earnest earlier this month, with a target date of May 16 to raffle off its grand prize — a 2018 Toyota Corolla donated by Toyota of Santa Fe.
Previously, Monte del Sol started selling tickets in the winter of 2016 for a May drawing. The state-run charter school has not funded the athletic department since 2016 because of budget cuts.
Chela Butler, Monte del Sol’s athletic coordinator, said the entire student body is involved in selling tickets, but she admits much of the burden will fall on the athletes, the coaches in the school’s five teams (volleyball, boys and girls soccer, boys and girls basketball) and the parents.
“We are trying to encourage everyone to participate in a community event,” Butler said, “but we do put more emphasis on the athletes since it is an athletics fundraiser and it’s for the athletes.”
The grand-prize winner will have the option of the car or $15,000 in cash, while the raffle also has four $500 second-place prizes.
Last year’s event raised $33,000 after expenses and helped set up the athletic department with a $40,000 budget for the 2017-18 school year. Ideally, Butler said, selling 5,000 tickets would raise $100,000 in revenue and give the department between $70,000 and $80,000 for the upcoming year. She acknowledged, though, that little more than 1,000 tickets were sold last spring — and that included pushing back the raffle date from April to May.
Also, the Monte del Sol community spent much of the winter and the spring selling tickets to get to that point. Butler said the daily duties of running an athletic department, as well as overseeing a variety of academic roles and her job as the head volleyball coach
caused delays in getting the raffle off the ground.
“At this point, we’re hoping to sell closer to 2,500 to 3,000 tickets,” Butler said. “That would be a nice number that would get us past what we need as far as the prizes we are giving out.” Time is of the essence, though. With a shortened window to sell tickets, there is a greater urgency to sell, for students in general and the athletic community in particular. It has some people concerned they won’t hit the target goal.
Alfredo Lujan, the school’s head boys basketball coach who was the athletic director last year, said he understands why the school has to raise funds for athletics, but feels the administration and its governing board haven’t done much to help the athletic department, which has been around for 18 years.
“I just think that our school is a little bit neglectful in prioritizing athletics,” said Lujan, who is Monte del Sol’s dean of students. “I think one of the reasons many other schools have athletic programs is because they prioritize it. Our school says, ‘We realize the value of athletics’ on one hand, but on the other says, ‘We can’t give any part of our budget to athletics.’ ”
Monte del Sol head girls basketball coach Ray Roybal said he talked to his players about their progress after Wednesday morning’s workout session, but was not encouraged by what he heard.
“Some of the girls were like, ‘I haven’t sold one yet,’ ” Roybal said. “That’s where I am a little concerned because they might not make the effort to sell tickets, and we emphasize to them, ‘This is for you guys.’ ”
Still, Roybal said he plans on having a booth at the Walgreen’s on West Zia Road, thanks to getting permission from the store manager, who is a relative of one of the parents. He added that the team also talked about working together as a group and going door to door to help sell tickets. Another option he said he might explore is finding a business willing to sponsor the program in return for advertisements at home games.
Parent Mark Salazar, whose son Isaiah played basketball and, previously, baseball (before the team was disbanded earlier this year) said much of the work in selling tickets came from a group of about 10 parents who are heavily invested in the athletic program because their children are in a sport.
What frustrated Salazar were the number of tickets students, athletes and parents returned to the school after failing to sell any, much less one, he said. It left the booster club members doing the heavy lifting.
Salazar added it was such an intense period that he was exhausted by the time the winner was announced in May. The experience frustrated him and the rest of the group, which also makes up the school’s athletic booster club.
“I think we are in the same boat this year as we were at the end of last year,” Salazar said, “We got together again with the group of boosters and they were like, ‘Let’s do this again,’ and I said, ‘Are you kidding me? Why would we do this again after what we went through last year?’ ”
Once the decision was made, Salazar and his wife Lorraine went back to work, letting people know on Facebook and hitting up people. Mark Salazar, who is a basketball official, even had fellow referees purchase tickets at an end-of-the-season breakfast for Northern New Mexico officials.
“We’re here and going to make sure there are sports at Monte one way or the other,” Mark Salazar said. “I guarantee we will have sports, one way or the other.”
Anyone interested in purchasing a ticket can call Butler at 505-982-5225.