Steve Payne wanted to help out the Foster Family Coalition of the NWT's Camp Connections in some way.
He found a partner in the Yellowknife Darts Association (YDA) and a new wood stove for the camp is now in the cards.
The YDA handed over a $2,260 cheque to the coalition at Hot Shots Pub and Grub on May 11, which will go toward helping purchase the new stove. The money came courtesy of 11 weeks worth of meat raffles done by the YDA.
Payne, who's a foster parent himself, said he was looking for a way to help out the coalition.
“I wanted a way to raise some money and I approached the coalition to see how I could do it,” he said. “I was told that I needed a non-profit association to help do that.”
Payne eventually found a willing partner in the YDA and the alliance was born.
“Steve came to me and told me his plan,” said Randy Thompson, the YDA's secretary-treasurer. “I took it back to our executive and they were on board with it.”
The YDA took care of all the expenses involved – tickets for the raffles and the meat itself. The profits from the raffles actually came out to $4,520 and was split 50/50 between the coalition and the YDA.
“Our half is going to help the Yellowknife players that are going to the Canadian Championships next month (in Drummondville, Que.),” said Thompson. “We have half the players that are going to nationals.”
Payne said he was impressed with the amount that was raised but more than anything else, he's happy that there will be a new piece of equipment for the youth that attend Camp Connections.
“The coalition has a lot of things on the go but I'm most happy that the kids will get to go to camp and enjoy the new stove,” he said.
Thompson himself said he was impressed with how everything went but for a much different reason.
“A lot of weeks we were doing this, we were in competition with the Chase The Ace,” he said. “We had no real advertising about what we were doing except word of mouth and the odd post on Facebook. The fact that we raised that much with all that was going on was pretty impressive.”
Thompson said the YDA plans on getting back to the meat raffles this coming September and expects they will last until May 2019.
Those raffles will also be for a good cause, he added.
“It's not just something we're going to do one-off,” he said. “We don't know if the coalition will be the same charity but if they are, that would be great. We just want to help out wherever we can.”