Fulton Lions Hit 70% Mark In Sixth Annual $10,000 Sweepstakes

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The Fulton Lions Club’s sixth annual “Lions Loot” sweepstakes — offering cash prizes ranging from $10,000 to $500 — has roared past the70% mark in sales, according to Lions Club President Dr. Brett Tallents.

With over four months before the mid-October drawing date, nearly three quarters of the entry tickets have been sold — “We’re hopeful, once again, that’s a sign that the drawing will be sold out early this year,” said Lions Sweepstakes Chairman Bill Conners. He reminded those planning to buy tickets to “buy early this year and take advantage of the second ‘early bird’ drawing set for July3rd.”

The local Lions initiated the sweepstakes six years ago with the hope that this project would become one of their primary fundraising efforts to support the Lions Club’s local charitable activities — activities including furnishing eyeglasses and eye surgery to those in need, providing guide dogs or supporting dog training for the blind, as well as white canes for the blind, and hearing and communication devices for the hearing impaired.

There will be two special features of the sweepstakes again this year with two “early bird” drawings. The first early bird drawing was held at the Lions’ board meeting in April. The second early bird will be held at the Lions’ board meeting in July for all applications received by July 1.

At each early bird drawing, ticket holders will be eligible for one of five $100 prizes. All tickets purchased that were purchased by April 1 are eligible for the second early bird drawing.

Sweepstakes tickets are $50.00 each and plans are again for a top prize payout of $10,000, second prize of $7,000 and third prize of $5,000, with five prizes of $1,000 and six prizes of $500 each. Only 1,000 tickets will be sold and the drawing will be held on Sunday, October 12, with a party for ticket holders at the Fulton Polish Home.

“Our first five sweepstakes were considered to be successful and the project has joined our annual Lions Pancake Breakfast and the Lions Duck Derby as important elements of our fundraising efforts,” said the Lions president, “actually all three are really fun events and will continue to help us to perpetuate our charitable work in the greater Fulton community.”

The committee for the event this year, with Lion Past President Conners, are Lions President Tallents, Past President Frank Bagadnani, Lions Leo Chirello, Howard Slade, Bruce Thomas, Steve Young, and Ed Vayner.

Last year’s sweepstakes returned the total of $30,000 to 14 lucky ticket holders, even though not all tickets were sold, according to Chairman Conners. In addition, $1,000 was paid out to lucky early bird winners.

Under the rules of the sweepstakes, if all 1.000 tickets are not sold by the date of the drawing, the drawing will go on as planned but prizes will be approximately 60 percent of the ticket money collected and distributed on a prorated basis. Any number of people may purchase a single ticket; however, due to space limitations only two adults (no children) may attend the drawing on a single ticket. All purchasers of tickets must be of 18 years of age or older.

Tickets are available through the mail and application forms are available at Dowd’s House of Flowers, The Medicine Place in both Fulton and Phoenix, Fulton Polish Home, Struppler’s Big M Market in Fulton, and Mirabito’s IGA Village Market in Hannibal, RFH’s Hideaway, Gary’s Sports Bar in Oswego, Mimi’s Drive-In, Dr. Brett Tallent’s office, Lakeside Hair Salon, and Ed Vayner’s Strategic Marketing Associates. Applications are also available at Griffin Greens golf course and are expected to be available at other area golf courses soon.

Complete details of the sweepstakes are available on the application. For more information or copies of the application, call 592-9386.

With a membership of more than 50 people, the Fulton Lions Club is one of the largest and most active Lions Club in New York State. While the Lions Club’s primary mission is vision and sight improvement, the organization does much to help support many other local charities in the community.

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