St. Ambrose tries tuition credit raffle

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"Tuition Credit Raffle: Win $5,000 tuition credit for the 2015-16 school year," boasted a flyer passed out by St. Ambrose School in Latham over the past few weeks and placed in the parish bulletin.

The winners won't get quite that much, but after the results were announced last week, principal Terri McGraw deemed the first-ever raffle a "moderate success" that St. Ambrose may try again next year. Well over 100 tickets at $50 each were sold, and the prizes included not just tuition assistance, but an iPad or $200 in cash. Those second and third prizes were donated by people from the parish and school.

Mrs. McGraw came up with the idea for the raffle. "I made the suggestion last year that maybe one of our fundraisers should benefit the families who pay tuition," she told The Evangelist.

At St. Ambrose, tuition for grades one through eight for the next school year will be $4,750. For kindergartners, it will be $5,550; for pre-K, $6,500, since each classroom needs full-time aides.

As with other Catholic schools, "people often cite monetary reasons for not coming" to St. Ambrose School, the principal said. "We run a pretty lean business," but "when you've got two or three [children], it adds up quickly."

Last year, St. Ambrose gave out $170,000 in financial aid and discounts -- from discounts for families with siblings all attending the school to help for some families with twins.

"We've got a lot of twins," Mrs. McGraw remarked. "Everything is doubled when you have twins."

The principal's goal, she said, is always "to keep families together and provide an affordable Catholic education." When families are concerned about the cost, she tells them, "We can make it work."

The $50 cost of tickets for the tuition credit raffle made the principal nervous, but she said that, after a sluggish start, entries began "rolling in" as the deadline approached.

Mrs. McGraw noted that Rev. Anthony Barratt, pastor of St. Ambrose parish, may have had a hand in that: He kept taking handfuls of flyers and leaving with them, and later on, people would appear with them and buy a ticket. The pastor bought 10 tickets himself.

In the end, ticket purchases were "split down the middle between families in the school and parishioners," Mrs. McGraw said. To eliminate any possibility of favoritism, tickets were numbered instead of including names. Ironically, Father Barratt pulled his own number as the first-prize winner; he said the winnings could be distributed among several families.

The second-prize winner was the family of a pre-kindergarten student; they received the iPad. A first-grader's family won the $200 third prize; since they're about to go on a vacation to Disney World, Mrs. McGraw said, the big joke at St. Ambrose right now is, "'What are you going to do with your $200?' 'I'm going to Disney!'"

Since this was the school's first attempt at a tuition credit raffle - and, to Mrs. McGraw's knowledge, St. Ambrose is the only school in the Albany Diocese trying this -- whether they'll try it again remains to be seen. "Maybe next year, we'll lower the ticket price," she mused.[[In-content Ad]]