The Raffle Story

One day back when I was a child, my grandparents took me to some event where they had a dinner and a raffle. Everyone had to buy one raffle ticket for admission. At the end, they would call raffle numbers and if they called your number, you got to go up to this long table that had a bunch of prizes and you could select an item from the table.

There were lots of items so pretty much everyone was going to be able to get something when their number was called, but you wanted to get called early on so there would be better prizes available to choose from. Also they would have a grand prize drawing at the end and the number they called would win the money collected from the raffle tickets.

I was pretty excited about this as I held onto my raffle ticket staring intently at the numbers. One by one, they called off numbers and people would get up to go to the table to select their prize. I kept hoping my number would be called soon, but it was not getting called.

I was starting to get a little worried that all the good prizes would be gone before they called my number. The prize table kept dwindling until most of the prizes were given out. They still had the grand prize to announce so there was still a little bit of hope left.

Then they started calling the numbers for the grand prize winner. I was staring at my ticket as they read each number. As each number was read, it was matching on my ticket! They finished reading the last number and it was my ticket! I ran up to the front to present my ticket and claim the grand prize.

There were some chuckles in the audience since I was a little kid and I had run up to collect the prize. They checked the ticket and confirmed with my grandparents who slowly followed me up there. Sure enough it was a match so I ended up winning the cash prize collected by the raffle tickets!

I don't remember the exact amount but it was somewhere around $100-$200 which was pretty good back then, especially for a little kid to win. As years went by, my grandparents would often recall about the time I won the grand prize at the raffle event. They have since passed away, but it will remain a good memory of the time I spent with them as a kid.