Boys and Girls Clubs Big Brothers Big Sisters of Edmonton and Area (BGCBigs) are hosting its annual Dream Home Lottery fundraiser, and the grand prize is a $1.3 million bungalow home in St. Albert that includes $ 10,000 in cash.
"The Dream Home lottery every year is our most important lottery or fundraiser," marketing and stewardship coordinator Darby Walton said. "It helps us raise the most amount of money out of any of our fundraising initiatives."
The million-dollar home is located at Evermore Crescent in Erin Ridge, with a total of 3,300 square feet that overlooks a pond and walking trails. It has a fully furnished home interior and walkout basement with high-end appliances and a walk-through pantry. The house also has a wet bar with a spa bathroom, steam shower, craft room, wine room, and exercise room.
The raised money will go to the Boys and Girls Clubs and Big Brothers Big Sisters in Edmonton and surrounding areas to support future mentorships and after-school programming for youth.
“It’s really important to us that we put a lot of time into this campaign every year,” Walton said. “That we’re driving sales and that we’re showing people all of these amazing values and prizes that they can win.”
The Boys and Girls Clubs allow kids to have a safe space after school that provides meals and mentorship every day in the evenings.
Big Brothers Big Sisters match mentors and mentees together based on similar interests and hang out once a week. The program offers different types of mentorships like corporate, school-based and couple’s mentorship through their recent program Game Changers, where male mentees can get off the waitlist to be matched with a mentor.
“They’ve treated me well,” Big Brothers Big Sisters mentee Abdallah Dhanji said. “It’s been important to my family.”
Dhanji talked about his experiences with his mentor, Adam, as joining the program has allowed him to experience and learn about new things. Dhanji said he and his mentor are very active people, and their hangouts usually consist of bike rides, swimming, basketball, ice skating, and even going to the mountains to snowboard.
“[My snowboarding] has been a major progression with Adam,” Dhanji said. “Learning with him and getting out on the hills and mountains with him has really improved my snowboarding a lot.”
Dhanji said learning how to snowboard was something he didn't think he could know until he joined the Big Brothers Big Sisters program. He also learned how to do a task like fixing a broken cabinet door and learned proper swimming techniques with the help of his mentor.
“I wouldn’t be able to do that stuff without this program and pairing me up with Adam. So, it’s been important.”
The lottery also has early bird prizes of $50,000 in cash, a $30,000 luxury cruise, a $10,000 vacation and $5,000 in cash. Tickets can be bought at bigbrothershomelottery.com and start at $30. The deadline to enter the million-dollar dream home lottery is Apr. 24, 2024.
