Special Olympics NWT is getting ready for a special event to kick off the month of May.
On Sunday, May 1st, Special Olympics NWT will be holding their 2022 Pick-A-Chick Raqffle fundraiser. This event will be held to support the organization, and will be held at the Ruth Inch Memorial Pool.
For this event, 495 rubber chicks will be thrown into the shallow end of the pool. Several members of the special olympics swimming team will then hop in to retrieve them in baskets. Once there are only six chicks remaining, each one pulled will award a special prize. The first place chick will award a grand prize of $1,000, with the rest of the chicks awarding various gift cards. Members of the viewing audience will have numbers that correspond to a number on the chicks. For the final few chicks, their numbers will determine who wins the prizes.
Lexi Letzing, who helped to organize this event, shared some details about its origin.
“This is the second time we’re running this Pick-A-Chick. Last year was it’s inception year. Our original plans for the raffle were to do the same format as this year; throw the chicks into the pool. Due to the COVID restrictions at the time, we had to do a bit of a quick pivot. What they were able to do is secure a private residence hot tub, in which they threw their 495 chicks. I think this year is going to be a little more exciting, having more athletes being able to be in the pool and retrieve more chicks.”
She added that the athletes had a trial run of the event earlier in the month, and that they are very excited for the main event. One hundred percent of the proceeds will go directly back to Special Olympics NWT, which provides sport programming to individuals that have an intellectual disability.
Lexi also shared her experience in helping to organize the event, including developing the method for buying tickets.
“It’s been really exciting, working with the website developer who’s helped us get the website back, and coming up with the QR code. A QR code is a little bit more handy than having a booklet full of tickets, so having that code set up and available on those posters makes it a little more user friendly than typing in that website domain.”
The QR code is available on the poster for would-be participants to scan. Tickets can also be purchased by visiting the Special Olympics NWT website, which can be found by clicking here.
