Caspar Creek Prius raffle winners Ann and Neil Graham have been frequent visitors to the Mendocino Coast for nearly four decades. Ann’s brother, the late Charles Steinbuck, and his wife, Carolyn Steinbuck, settled in Elk, where Carolyn went on to raise their three sons. Ann’s grand-niece, Josephine Steinbuck (daughter of Emily Inwood and Ann’s nephew Elias Steinbuck), is enrolled as a second-grader with Caspar Creek Learning Community.
Caspar Creek, a parent-run Mendocino Coast K-5 public charter school program of Mattole Valley Charter School, relies heavily on its families, who enthusiastically pitch in to help with every aspect of operations, from fundraising and administrative tasks, to cleaning and upkeep of its rural Mendocino campus. The annual Prius raffle, conducted entirely by volunteer parents and teachers, has been a major factor in Caspar Creek’s ability to survive in the current harsh economic climate of the California public school system.
“Josephine always speaks so lovingly of her school, Caspar Creek, and we’re happy to support it,” says winner Ann Graham. Newly retired, the Grahams “…look forward to many more happy memories with our family in northern California.”
Caspar Creek’s seventh annual Prius raffle will launch in spring 2012. Entries will be available from Caspar Creek parents and teachers, at select local businesses, and by phone at 1-TP-RAFFLE-TIX. More information is available at www.casparcreek.org.
Posted January 29, 2012.
2011 Prius raffle winners S. A. Ephraim and Ruth Rosenblum (front row, from right) pose with CCLC, Inc. board members Rachael Lindstrom and Leslie Kashiwada (front row, from left) and assorted Caspar Creek students.
Lucky Locals Win 2011 Prius Raffle
S. A. Ephraim had given up on attending Caspar Creek Learning Community’s January 29, 2011 Prius raffle drawing celebration at the Mendocino Recreation Center. His wife, Ruth Rosenblum, and their young son Yoel, a Caspar Creek Kindergartener, were already in attendance at the event, and would represent him as he stayed behind to mind the family business, Frankie’s Pizza and Ice Cream, a mere two blocks away.
However, the promise of square dancing, bake sale, and silent auction (along with the fifth annual Prius drawing) must have proved irresistible. Ephraim, joining the party in progress, arrived in time to watch Yoel’s teacher, Anne Blanton, pull his family’s winning ticket from the custom-built tumbler (made from a repurposed pickle barrel) used to mix up the nearly 2,500 entries.
Adding a note of serendipity was the fact that Ephraim had worked at Caspar Creek as an instructional aide for several years prior to his and Rosenblum’s 2007 acquisition of Frankie’s, and in that role had been an early supporter of the original Prius raffle.
Caspar Creek Learning Community is a non-classroom-based K-5 public charter school program serving Mendocino Coast families from Westport to Albion since 2000. All proceeds from the Prius raffle support Caspar Creek’s local educational programs and its learning center near Caspar.
Posted January 30, 2011.
Congratulations to David Russell of Fort Bragg, CA, grand prize winner in our 2009-2010 Prius raffle!
Posted January 30, 2010.
Posted October 30, 2009.
Congratulations to Cassidy Rist of Santa Fe, NM, the grand prize winner in our 2008-2009 Prius raffle! Cassidy learned of our raffle through a friend at the College of the Redwoods Fine Woodworking program, and entered by phone a few days before the January 31 drawing.
Rist, a 29-year-old emergency veterinarian in Santa Fe, New Mexico, is originally from Gainesville, Florida. She and her boyfriend of five years, Jason Straw, a student of the Fine Woodworking Program at College of the Redwoods in Fort Bragg and also from Gainesville, plan to return to there in August when his program is finished.
“Jason and I originally bought 5 tickets in December- he LOVES raffles and convinced me to go in on the tickets. About 3 days before the drawing took place he called me and convinced me (basically pestered me) into buying another 5 tickets [by phone]. I remember saying “Jason, this is silly, I never win anything.” But I figured it would shut him up and I would be helping out a local school.
“I work nights. The day of the drawing I woke up around 6 pm to find a voice mail on my phone with numerous people yelling and screaming and someone saying “You won the raffle!” I completely ignored the message assuming that Jason had set up a prank and had all of his classmates at school in on the joke. Anyone who knows Jason knows that is exactly what he would do. I didn’t even think for one moment that I had actually won.
“That night I went out to dinner with a friend and received a call from Hilleary Burgess. He was calling to tell me I had won the raffle and I spent at least 5 minutes trying to get him to tell me that Jason had put him up to the call. It took a while for me to be convinced, but when I finally was, I was in shock. I told the waitress that I had just won a Prius and she told every one in the restaurant- people kept coming up to congratulate me- I even got a margarita on the house. I called Jason right away and the funny thing is that he thought I was trying to fool him! We obviously like to play pranks on each other.
“I’ve wanted a Prius for a long time. I’m currently still driving the Ford Ranger I’ve had since I was 19 years old. About two weeks ago I saw a used Prius for sale in the local paper for a pretty good price and I was thinking about trying to buy it. I remember talking to Jason about it and he said “Wait until after the raffle- what if we win?” I never even once thought the winning ticket would have my name on it. Good thing I waited!
“So now I have the car that I have wanted for a long time. I’m giving my truck away to one of the technicians I work with, and Jason and I will be driving the Prius back to Florida this August. I feel like the luckiest person on earth.”
Posted February 11, 2009.
Our 14th semi-annual reduced-cost dog and cat vaccination clinic, held October 25, was a great success, completing our 8th year of providing affordable vaccines for North Coast pets.
Caspar Creek Learning Community has held dog and cat vaccination clinics every spring and fall since 2001, making vaccinations affordable for pet owners at all income levels while raising funds for important school programs.
Posted July 3, 2008.
When Kara Czaplewski, a first-grade teacher at Fairhaven Elementary in Mundelein, Illinois, listened to her phone messages the morning of February 1, 2008, she was in for a shock.
“I had just put Kyle (one week old at the time) down for a nap… I listened to the message and my heart skipped several beats. Then I started screaming [to my husband], “Neal, we just won a car or $20,000!”
“He didn’t believe me at first, so I let him listen to the message. Then I began dancing around the living room.”
Kara had entered the Caspar Creek Learning Community’s Prius raffle last July while she and her husband were visiting Mendocino as part of a two-week west coast vacation. The Illinois couple were exploring Mendocino when they stumbled on the Art Center fair and the Prius raffle booth. After acquiring a painting for their expected child’s room, she said, “We decided to buy raffle tickets because we saw it was for a school, and being a teacher, I like to support education and schools.
“We like to think Kyle is our lucky charm. I was pregnant when we bought the ticket, and my name was picked one week after he was born.”
Czaplewski joins the previous year’s Prius raffle winner, Fort Bragg resident John Fremont, who got his entry in front of Harvest Market.
Caspar Creek Learning Community (formerly the Mendocino Satellite School) is a non-classroom-based K-5 public charter school program of Mattole Valley Charter School serving Mendocino Coast families from Westport to Albion since 2000. All proceeds from the Prius raffle go to Caspar Creek’s booster fund to support its local educational programs and its learning center near Caspar, CA.
Now in its third run—launched June 12—the Prius raffle has become a mainstay of Caspar Creek’s fundraising, along with its twice-yearly low-cost dog and cat vaccination clinics, held each spring and fall at Harvest Market in Fort Bragg, CA.
Posted February 15, 2008.
Local anti-war activist and retired publisher John Fremont doesn’t believe in gambling. So when third grader Eden Lorentzen and her dad, Bob, offered him a raffle ticket on his way into Harvest Market one Tuesday afternoon in December, he declined, telling them as much.
The father-daughter team were selling Prius raffle tickets for the Caspar Creek Learning Community (formerly Mendocino Satellite School), the non-classroom-based K-5 public charter school program where Eden is enrolled. Caspar Creek regularly holds raffles, pet vaccine clinics and other events to make ends meet. Raffle proceeds will pay off a 2003 loan to add a K-1 building, and fund long-needed repairs to the 2-5 building.
Fremont, who works as a Parent Advocate with the Children’s System of Care at the county Department of Mental Health, must have reconsidered while shopping. On his way out of Harvest, he paid $20 for a one-in-2500 chance to win a Toyota Prius or $20,000 cash. The following Sunday, his winning ticket was drawn by guest of honor Penny Honer, co-owner of Harvest.
The hushed gathering of fifty or sixty parents, teachers and students packed into a classroom at Caspar Creek’s Road 409 learning center for the drawing that evening were surprised and amused, however, when the phone number Fremont had written on his ticket stub a mere five days earlier failed to connect as parent Bob Lorentzen tried to call with the news. “I don’t know,” Fremont said later. “We sometimes have trouble with phones.”
The suspense didn’t last long. Later that evening, Caspar Creek teacher Nina Ravitz saw Fremont’s wife, Cynthia Frank, who directs the Mendocino Women’s Choir, at another event, and relayed the news of his good fortune.
Fremont, a former Peace Corps volunteer and Freedom Rider, and co-founder of both the local chapter of Amnesty International and the award-winning Mendocino Coast Peace and Justice Center, had given the raffle ticket to his son Anthony as a birthday gift, along with the admonition, “Gambling is for losers. Money doesn’t grow on trees. Work for a living.”
“Now he wants to learn handicapping,” Fremont joked.
Anthony plans to donate an unspecified portion of the $20,000 prize to a local charity. Fremont added, “Local non-profits are encouraged to apply.”
Posted January 15, 2007.
Posted September 11, 2000.