Wanganui Boys & Girls Gym Club draws raffle on Sunday

The club needed the raffle to help keep the doors open.

Some lucky person will be driving away from the Wanganui Boys and Girls Gym Club at Springvale in a different vehicle from which they arrived on Sunday.

The club has been selling tickets for the last three months for their giant raffle fundraiser, which will give away some $17,000 worth of prizes from 11am to 3pm on Sunday.

As well as the car, there is a year's supply of pet food from Mars Petcare and $1000 worth of Revlon cosmetics.

Club manager Nicky Rennie organised the raffle with the club's board chair Jason Granville, and said they wanted to do something big.

"The club is in trouble and we really needed the community to dig deep to help raise some much needed funds," said Rennie.

"The support from the business community was amazing and we are so grateful to the incredible sponsors. The prizes really are out of this world"

Rennie said the club has had "an immense year of growth" which will help get them out of the financial hole they were in.

"We have completely overhauled all of our operating systems, registration process and the general way that the club is now run."

They also had a very successful Downers New Zealand Masters Games, tripling the entry numbers to 76 from the 20 who took part in 2017.

The raffle draw, which will be supervised by the police, saw tickets sold only to locals so that the benefit of the prizes remains here, Rennie said.

"Seeing someone drive away in a new car on Sunday is pretty exciting and we really hope most of the prizes stay in the area."