Tuesday night, December 9th, at their Holiday Dinner, the River Hills Lions announced the first of their 2008-2009 charities budget disclosing the amount of $37,000 raised for the River Hills/Lake Wylie Emergency Medical Squad (EMS).
For the last several years, the River Hills Lions Club held an EMS Raffle Dinner helping the EMS with their annual budget. River Hills Lions helped start EMS 20 or more years ago. The Raffle was an annual success offering a “good chance” to win up to $10,000 with only 300 tickets being sold. Since South Carolina Lottery made any raffle gaming illegal other than the SC Education Lottery, the Lions were in jeopardy of breaking the law and a possibility of all members of the club and raffle committee being fined or needing to forfeit any state business licenses they may hold. This risk was way to big for anyone to take a chance so the committee had additional work to do to invent a venue for raising $25-30,000. The team, Paul Boggs, Tom Stall, Deb Dagilus, Tommy Haughton, Patrick Duffy, John Killian, RJ Phillips, Bob Daily and Jay Wolf were able to pull a silent auction that netted the above amount. Prizes ranged from ladies jewelry, to signed Peter Max lithographs, to a sailboat, to a car. Great Bonsais, liquor, spa, vacation and golf baskets and packages also were offered; as well as condos, vacation spots and several gourmet dinners. A great time was had by all as the beer flowed from the keg and the oompa band played on.
Pictured below is Barbara Rowley receiving the keys from Lion RJ Phillips for the Toyota car offered by Lion Don Long.
