Raffle News #1

 Mmakau Bike Raffle

 

If you are reading this you probably have some idea the purpose of the blog which is to let you follow the bike raffle here in Mmakau.  And you are probably one of those people who generously donated the let us buy more bikes for the raffle.



 

So far we have good news and bad news.  The good news is that from the various friends and family members we solicited for a donation to the raffle, we have received ten donations which will allow us to add nine bikes to the raffle. The majority of the donations have been enough for one bike which is great.

 

The bad news is that the raffle sales to the kids is going slow.  We have only sold 36 tickets during this first week.  In addition the bike shop owner told us that because these bikes are imported and the value of the rand has dropped since he gave his first price, the new bikes will cost $95 each.  It's still reasonable and we believe the shop owner is giving us a good deal because the bike, helmet, and lock if bought separately would cost probably $20 more than the price we are getting. 

 

Last week we took a taxi to Brits and purchased two 26-inch boys mountain bikes - one red and one blue.  Since it was Ramadan this month, the shop owner was unable to help us with transport to Mmakau so we are trying to figure out how to get the bikes here.  We might just ride them the 25 km. distance.  We will post pictures of the bikes as soon as we get them here.  We figured if the kids saw these shiny new bikes, they might be motivated to buy raffle tickets.

 

Finally, we met with the student leaders at Tsogo Secondary School and got them started with selling raffle tickets to their fellow students.  These tickets will be donated to deserving kids in the village who cannot afford a ticket themselves.  If Tsogo sells 200 or more tickets, we will raffle off to them Gary's blackberry.  If they go over 400 tickets, they will have our old digital camera included.  Incentives.  We will meet with them every Friday to see how they are progressing.

 

We will also try to update this raffle blog once a week during the upcoming five weeks when the raffle will end and a bunch of happy kids (11 so far) will be riding their new bikes.