THUNDER BAY – There’s only one grand-prize winner each year in the Fort William Rotary House Lottery, but in a sense, the entire community comes out on top.
Shuniah’s Katrina Sutherland was the big winner in 2021, her ticket drawn out of 16,000 others on Thanksgiving Monday at a brief ceremony held outside the $642,000 Birch Court home.
Dawn Sebesta, president of the Fort William Rotary Club, it’s all about the community.
“The money we raise, it stays local,” said Sebesta, standing outside the home, built by Lorimar Construction Ltd.
“I think that’s the most important thing. It helps support different organizations throughout the city, like the Regional Health Sciences Centre, George Jeffrey Children’s Centre, Wilderness Discovery and the air cadet squadron. I think all of these organizations really appreciate what we can do for them and how we can help them out every year and I think that is really important to our community.”
Unlike most other Rotary House Lottery draws, this year was like no other. The organizing committee was unable to offer in-person tours of the home and instead had to rely on virtual tours. It also meant ticket sales were reduced to online only.
If anything, it made their jobs easier, with tickets selling out in a record five weeks. Going forward, the online option will be retained, though organizers do hope to return to the more traditional July 1 drawing at Marina Park during Canada Day celebrations.
And they hope to be able to allow the public to walk through the home.
“It was still hard that we couldn’t offer the visits to the house for people who were buying tickets, but we did have virtual tours on the website where you could look at what the house looked like on the inside,” Sebesta said.
“So that helped a little bit. It was amazing. It was truly amazing and we truly thank the city, thank the community for buying 16,000 tickets in five short weeks. To me, that was phenomenal.”
It’s expected the draw will return in 2022.
