There was a special fundraiser held at the Robertson Elementary School in Warwick, R.I. for Mitch Levin and his family. Levin, whom we have never met, happens to be a patrolman on the police force at the University of Rhode Island, where I work.
Levin, who lives in Warwick, has been in the hospital since the day after Christmas with endocarditis. During his recovery, he suffered an aneurysm. Obviously, it's a tough time for the family.
A couple nights ago, the Wife mentioned going to the fundraiser, which a friend of ours - Pam - helped organize. Rhode Island being the way it is, I knew of the fundraiser because of work, so we decided to make a night of it.
Here's where the embarrassment kicked in. As part of the fundraiser, you bought raffle tickets, 20 for $10. There were about 30 prizes up for grabs, and you could choose to put your tickets in the drawings for the specific prizes you wanted to win.
Of the roughly 30 prizes, we won six.
It started with four tickets to a live show for Barney. Before they announced the winner, I turned to the Wife and our friend Alissa and said, "I'm going to win." We laughed a moment later when my prediction came true.
Then we won a $25 gift card to the Remington House, a local eatery. Next was a bucket of craft prizes donated by a Girl Scout troop. Then it was a gift certificate for two large pizzas from Dominos with a blanket. After that was another gift certificate for pizza place, with another blanket. Finally, we won a huge tray of cookies.
It got to the point where we were saying to ourselves, "Please don't win again. Please don't win again."
We didn't go to the fundraiser with the intent of winning a stash. With everything the Levin family is going through, it just seemed a little wrong for us to benefit so much.
So we paid it forward. We asked Pam, the organizer, to give the gift certificates for the Remington House and the pizza places to the Levins. Maybe a few nights of not thinking about food can help a little.
The bucket of crafts went home with Alissa, who in turn is going to give it to her friend, who has a young daughter. I think the Barney tickets will go to my brother and his girlfriend so they can take their boys.
Our goal in going out last night was to do a little bit to help someone else. Hopefully by sharing what we won, we are doing just that.
(By the way, International Pay It Forward Day is April 28, 2011. Check out this Website to learn more.)
Best night ever!
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