Kenton Pre-School sells winning ticket in South East Devon Community Raffle

WHAT a daunting prospect – to choose one raffle ticket out of 25,000 to be the winner of �1,000.

As guest of Sid Valley Rotary Club on Monday, Di Bowerman, Sidmouth Herald news editor, did just that.

Keenly watched by Rotarian David Royse, chairman of the South East Devon Community Raffle, and guest Rotarians from the seven Rotary clubs involved in sponsoring the raffle, the first three winning tickets were pulled, after much rummaging, from the tightly packed drum.

It is the fourth year of the draw and during this time some �118,000 has been raised for charities across the region. As well as Sid Valley, other local Rotary clubs involved are Otter Valley, Honiton and Axminster.

Dawlish Water and Teignmouth, Chudleigh, Bovey Tracey also support the raffle, which local charities and organisations benefit from by selling tickets and keeping the sales. Rotary makes no profit.

This year’s �1,000 prize went to a woman who bought her ticket from Kenton Pre-School. Second prize of �500 was a ticket sold by Teignmouth New Road Community Association and third prize of �250 goes to someone who bought a ticket from Headway Devon in Honiton.

Five more �50 prizes were drawn by presidents of visiting Rotary clubs.

Paul Dowen, president of Sid Valley Rotary, said: “The raffle raises a lot of money for a lot of local organisations and involves a lot of organisation by the people running it.”

This year, the recession has hit sales of tickets, with 25,000 of the 80,000 printed, being sold and Rotarians will consider whether to continue the raffle into its fifth year. The money raised for organisations this year is �22,500 after prize money is accounted for.