Despite taking place in the grips of a pandemic, the 2020 Cars For Christmas Lottery has doled out $212,000 to local not-for-profit organizations and Grande Prairie regional food banks. Swan City Rotary Clubs Rotary Chair Dave Cook says in all, the lottery brought in an additional $600,000 above and beyond what was donated on Wednesday.
He adds the cheque presentation to over a dozen local groups, including the Regional EMS Foundation, Gymniks, and PARDS, felt a little extra special.
“It was a little bit emotional in our presentations, because of how badly the partner groups needed the money because of COVID-19,” he says.
“They were unable to fundraise during the normal channels throughout the year, so they were very, very grateful.”
Cook says he’s not surprised they were able to raise such a vast amount of money and believes it continues with the trend of generosity shown by those in the municipality and beyond.
“It’s a reflection of Grande Prairie and Alberta in general, we get kicked quite often and we seem to fight through it.”
“For us, when we handed out that money and shared the results of our lottery, it was kind of proof of that.”
Cook says they remain forever grateful for the support from the community and believes that the non-profit-driven lotteries have an overall greater impact on those who support them.
“The lotteries that are run by rotary benefit this community, not just in terms of donations going back to the community, but all the money we spend running these lotteries,” he says.
“That money stays in this community, and there is a lot of competition out there for lotteries.”