Dan Rioux wins $10,000 in Sioux Lookout Skating Club’s 50/50 Raffle

Tim Brody - Editor

Sioux Lookout’s Dan Rioux is the winner of the Sioux Lookout Skating Club’s 50/50 Raffle.
Rioux and his wife Shannon purchased their tickets for the draw from their neighbour’s daughters, Rilynne and Tesse Cospito.
“Excited and happy to win,” Rioux shared. “We’ve been supporting this ever since we got back to town. Every year. So, it’s kind of nice and it’s nice that our neighbour down the road sold us the ticket.”
Rilynne and Tessa’s mother Andrea Cospito said her daughters were delighted to learn one of the tickets they sold to their neighbours ended up being the winner. “The wild thing is that we’ve been selling tickets for the last four years and out of the last four years, three of those times we have been the ones to sell the winning ticket,” Andrea shared. “We had 80 tickets to sell and Dan bought 10 of them and one of those was the magic number,” she added.
This year’s 50/50 raffle was a sellout with 2000 tickets sold, for a grand prize of $10,000. The winning ticket was drawn on April 12 during the club’s year-end show.
Sioux Lookout Skating Club Fundraising Chair Melissa Slade commented, “This was the third year in a row it’s been a sellout. We can’t thank the community enough for their support in all of it. We’re a small community but we’re mighty. They once again stepped up and supported us with a sellout.”
Slade said, “Not only is it a great feeling to give $10,000 to our winner, this year being Dan, but that also means, just a reminder, that’s $10,000 to the club.”
She continued, “Skating isn’t cheap, and there’s a misconception I think sometimes that all you need is a pair of figure skates. Our coaches are all certified, there comes a price with that for those sorts of things, and our club is re-growing. After COVID we’re slowly getting the numbers back up, which is great to see, but those costs stay standard, they remain, so whether there’s 50 skaters or whether there’s 20 skaters that just means that cost is split between 20 instead of 50. This really helps to keep this just a little bit more affordable for families, especially those with multiple skaters who love the sport to be able to do what they love to do and that in itself is the win.”
Slade concluded, “Our next event is our annual duck race. So, starting in July we will be selling our ducks and it seems to be growing each and every year as well. Last year was a total of 932 ducks, so hopefully we can beat that again this year, 1000 ducks is a sellout for that, and of course our taco in a bag event before the race.”