The Temiskaming chapter of Ducks Unlimited Canada isn’t letting the COVID-19 pandemic derail its fundraising efforts.
In light of their annual fundraising dinner being cancelled this spring, Ducks Unlimited chapters across Ontario are hosting firearm calendar draws.
“Essentially it’s a 2021 wall-sized calendar that people buy. Each calendar is $40 each,” said Pete Gilboe, Temiskaming fundraising committee chair for Ducks Unlimited Canada.
“With the calendar, essentially you’re buying a raffle ticket, so each calendar is serialized and the ticket stub when you buy your calendar, we submit the stub to Ducks Unlimited Canada and then once a week through the entirety of 2021, they draw a ticket, or a name, from one of those calendars and that person wins a firearm.”
Gilboe noted that the draw is only happening in Ontario and that there are just 5,000 calendars being sold.
“So you’re buying one of 5,000 calendars but it comes with 52 chances to win,” he explained in a telephone interview.
“Rough math, the odds are one in a hundred because you’ve got one of 5,000 tickets but they’re drawing 52 times.”
The firearm calendars are available at Canadian Tire in New Liskeard, by calling Gilboe at 705-648-3750 or emailing him at [email protected].
You can also purchase a calendar online on the Ducks Unlimited website at ducks.ca/ontarioguncalendar.
Ducks Unlimited also is only accepting cash this year, Gilboe noted.
“The reason we’re really pushing this (raffle) this year is that our annual dinner didn’t happen in 2020 because of COVID and who knows what’s going to happen in 2021,” reasoned Gilboe.
“This is a major fundraiser now in Ontario for Ducks Unlimited and it gives folks, who ordinarily would have gone to the dinner and supported DU that way, a way to support the cause.”
PANDEMIC STRUGGLES
Like most fundraising organizations in Canada, Gilboe said that Ducks Unlimited has been having a hard time because all of its fundraising activities have been curtailed due to the pandemic.
“Our dinner was set to go here the first week of May and then all of a sudden the middle of March happened and that was the end of that,” he explained.
“Our dinner is usually a 50- to 300- seat event and it’s a big deal. We raise a ton of money, so it’s a huge loss. Pretty much every small town in Ontario has a Ducks Unlimited dinner and that’s where the majority of their funds come from for all of their conservation work. They get corporate donations and all that kind of stuff, the high-end donations, but the bread and butter is the fundraising dinners in hundreds and hundreds of communities and that’s all dried up.”
Gilboe noted that DU Canada has always run the firearm calendar draws, but that they are stressing its significance amid the pandemic.
“It’s just so much more important this year because we don’t have those other means of raising money,” he said.
“We haven’t really promoted them here in the past but it was something that our Ducks Unlimited staff folks asked us to put a little more emphasis into.”
Gilboe said the tickets will be on sale until December 15, unless they sell out quicker. As of Friday, November 13, they were 85 per cent sold already.