By Miguel Nunez
CCC Journalism Program
BLACKWOOD – The Gloucester Township Rotary Club Foundation is holding a raffle to help raise money to build a baseball field for mentally and physically disabled children.
An autographed Phillies jersey will be the prize for the most recent charitable raffle, courtesy of the Gloucester Township Rotary Foundation and Camden County College. By Miguel Nunez, CCC Journalism Program
This field has been given the nickname “Field of Dreams” and the fundraising has already begun with tickets being sold since the beginning of the past month. The tickets $5 apiece and through the help of Camden County College, they are being advertised around campus and being sold in room 200 of the community center. The winning prize of the raffle is a custom framed autographed authentic Phillies jersey. The jersey is signed by four major stars of the Phillies team: Roy Halladay, Cole Hamels, Cliff Lee and Roy Oswalt. The drawing date to determine the winner will be June 2, 2012 and the location of the drawing will be Veterans Memorial Park in Gloucester Township. This means that the raffle will be held during the popular annual event known as Gloucester Township Day.
Rosemary Schamp, president of the Gloucester Township Rotary Club Foundation, said the organization’s purpose is to help the community. “A Rotary Club is a group of members from a community, town, city or township that come together to either raise or donate money for the greater good of their location. The purpose of the organization is to bring together local professional leaders in providing humanitarian service, encouraging high ethical standards in all aspects of their community and helping build goodness not only in the neighborhoods that they live in but in the whole world.”
Schamp said the group hopes the raffle will help it meets its goal of building a field for disabled children to play. “This was an idea proposed by a few of our members who have careers in the educational field, a few specifically in the special educational field, and we thought it would be great to build a field specifically for children with disabilities. We want the field to be designed for their needs, so that they can have fun and learn about a great American sport without any difficulties. The prize for the raffle was donated by one of our members who had it as a personal item and we are thrilled for whoever wins that great item. But more than anything we are thrilled to see people come out and donate money for a great cause.”
Schamp said the group is also looking forward to other projects. “We have put a lot of work in the past years into the completely improved Gloucester Township Rotary Library on the Black Horse Pike and most recently into a playground in the community for disadvantaged children. We always look to keep the public aware of all future projects and hopefully we can do that through further involvement with Camden County College and through our website, http://www.gloucestertownshiprotary.org.”