By Chris Lewis | Vol 8 No. 2 (Jan. 30, 2019)
One Mount Pearl resident went home with over $8,000 this past week.
The Mount Pearl Sport Alliance (MPSA) has spent the last 27-weeks getting together with residents from around the city as they held their second Chase the Ace event.
The event was held in hopes of fundraising money to divvy up between the 13 different youth sports groups under the banner of the MPSA- among them being minor hockey, baseball, and even bowling. These sports organizations are known to hold individual fundraising efforts for their own purposes, but this particular event is an Alliance-wide operation.
The money raised, as Mike Bugden of the MPSA explained, would be used by each separate sport group to meet their own individual needs.
The event started in July of 2019, with weekly events hosted at the soccer hut for the following 27-weeks. Each week, Bugden says he saw more and more people coming to take part as the jackpot-winning Ace of Spades eluded those chosen to flip a card.
“It’s an interesting little project, because it brings people in from the community. It really turns into quite a social event at the soccer hut as well - we always have about 100 or more people sitting around. It’s not quite a kitchen party, but it’s a lot of fun,” Bugden said. “It’s a bit of entertainment for sure. People had to put up with my terrible jokes.”
However, that fun came to a close on Monday night, Jan. 27 when Valerie Pike was called to flip one of the remaining cards. Luck was in her favour as she turned over the coveted ace of spades, earning herself the jackpot prize and ultimately bringing the weekly event to a close.
Pike went home with $8,443.50.
This came at roughly half way through the deck of cards, and although that is the nature of these types of fundraisers, it is a far reach from the prize money claimed at the first chase the ace event, which came out to be approximately $159,000.
Bugden says that although the event did not reach the kind of numbers as the first year, he knew it boiled down to simple luck. He also knew that chase the ace events tend to really pick up steam once the deck gets much smaller than it was this past week, when the stakes are even higher.
“It starts to catch people’s interest when the jackpot reaches around $10,000. At least, that was our experience last time. Weather was also a bit of an issue this time around,” Bugden said. “I also think it’s entirely possible that the enthusiasm for chase the ace might be waning a little. So, it’s a little tougher to get as many people involved”
Just because this singular event did not reach the level of success that last year’s chase the ace saw does not mean bad news for the Alliance, as each of the 13 organizations are always out and about in the community with various other fundraisers.
“It’s pretty well non-stop,” Bugden said.
Still, Bugden said he and the Alliance were nothing short of pleased with the outcome, noting that any amount of money raised was worth the efforts - efforts that he described as being a ton of fun.
The exact amount of money that would be going out to the sports had yet to be calculated, but Bugden estimated it to be around $1,000 for each sport. He said that number is subject to change, however, as the final amounts are sorted out.
In the future, Bugden says that another chase the ace event may be in order, but it is something that he and the Alliance will have to mull over, and possibly look into a new type of fundraiser.
“We might just sit back and size it all up. We’ll look into other fundraising options that we can all collectively be a part of, and we’ll take it from there,” he said.
