Creative raffle helps church and local businesses

Facing financial difficulties during this pandemic, the First Presbyterian Church in Chester has come up with a creative way to raise funds and help local businesses at the same time.

The church has purchased $25 and $50 gift cards from local restaurants. Through the month of February, the congregation will be selling $5 raffle tickets for these gift cards. Each raffle ticket gives you nine chances to win.

The drawings will be held each Thursday in March and winners will be notified by phone or email. Announcements will appear on the church’s Facebook page.

If cards are unclaimed after a week, they will go back into the raffle. Tickets must be purchased in person by cash or check only (write “raffle” in the memo line).

Contact the church for information (845-469-4877 or info@chespresny.com).

Tickets will also be available for sale Sundays, Feb. 21 and 28, from noon to 1 p.m. in the community room of the church. Other arrangements can be made by contacting the church.

‘To give back to these local businesses’

“We know that there are so many more struggling and hurting local businesses and so if all goes well with this raffle we will run it again rotating in different businesses,” Pastor Erin Moore said. “So often organizations go to these local businesses and ask for various donations for fund raisers... (We) have decided in our own fund-raising efforts to give back to these local businesses, too, which is why we went and purchased all the gift cards from them rather than asking for a donation.”

Moore also noted that Rushing Duck Brewery donated a matching gift card for the one they purchased.

Schedule

Gift cards for local restaurants will be drawn on these dates:

March 4: $50 Christopher’s Bistro; $25 Tina’s Pizza

March 11: $50 Magoya; $25 Rushing Duck Brewery

March 18: $50 Clayton’s Delany’s; $25 Chester Ice Cream

March 25: $50 Alan’s Falafel; $25 Meadow Blues Coffee; $25 Rushing Duck Brewery

The small congregation of the First Presbyterian Church serves the community in many ways: they operate the food pantry, house the local Chester Kiwanis club as well as three support groups, charter the local boy scouts, share their space with a Korean Methodist congregation, make available their community garden and are partnering with the newly formed Village of Chester Arts Association (VOCA).