A Marshall County woman turned $10 into a new Gator.
Marilyn White of Benton won this year’s Kentucky Sheriffs’ Association Boys and Girls Ranch raffle, the second Marshall County resident in three years to win the drawing. Marshall County Sheriff Kevin Byars delivered her prize Wednesday afternoon.
The raffle serves as an annual fundraiser for the Sheriffs’ Boys and Girls Ranch, located in Gilbertsville. Participants pay $10 to be entered into the annual drawing, held each year during the Kentucky Sheriffs’ Association conference in Frankfort. White’s name was drawn from the raffle drum Sept. 14.
This year’s event raised more than $82,000 for the Boys and Girls Ranch, Byars said. Tickets were $10 apiece and sold in sheriffs’ departments throughout the state. All proceeds went to benefit the ranch.
The ranch hosts about 600 children each year, and nearly all 120 counties have participated through use, fundraising or other means since its inception in 1975. Campers arrive on Sunday and stay for a week to experience traditional summer camp activities such as arts and crafts, swimming and fishing. In addition, local law enforcement will come host various programs, such as drug awareness. Boys and girls alternate weeks, so that one week boys from across the region attend and the next week girls attend; so it goes from about mid-June through the end of July.
The camp is free to all campers ages 8-11, and those who attend are chosen by county sheriffs, Assistant Camp Director Tracy Powell said in a previous interview.
“It’s designed for children from low-income homes, but we don’t turn a child away,” Powell said. “ … We’ll have like 15-20 counties every week, but we allot so many boys from each county and the next week so many girls from different counties. We just rotate them throughout the summer.”
Costs to run the camp for a year total about $500,000. The annual raffle has proven one of the camp’s largest fundraisers, Byars said.