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Genesis Prep mom wins truck

DEVIN WEEKS | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 2 years, 4 months AGO
by DEVIN WEEKS
Devin Weeks is a third-generation North Idaho resident. She holds an associate degree in journalism from North Idaho College and a bachelor's in communication arts from Lewis-Clark State College Coeur d'Alene. Devin embarked on her journalism career at the Coeur d'Alene Press in 2013. She worked weekends for several years, covering a wide variety of events and issues throughout Kootenai County. Devin now mainly covers K-12 education and the city of Post Falls. She enjoys delivering daily chuckles through the Ghastly Groaner and loves highlighting local people in the Fast Five segment that runs in CoeurVoice. Devin lives in Post Falls with her husband and their three eccentric and very needy cats. | January 5, 2023 1:06 AM

Each year for the past three, Chelsea Greilach has bought raffle tickets to try her luck in a multi-school car giveaway.

In December, she was in luck — she won a truck.

"I didn't believe them when they called me," Greilach said Wednesday. "It was one of my daughter's friends who called and said we won the truck, and I didn't believe them."

Greilach, of Rathdrum, has four kids at Genesis Preparatory Academy in Post Falls, one of the raffle's participating schools. She said she usually buys a few of the $10 tickets, but this year bought 200 of them.

"We sold a lot of them," she said. "Whichever ones we didn't sell, we paid for the rest, because that's my kids' sports fees for the year."

A total of 4,854 tickets were sold for the 2022 car raffle, which launched in March, bringing in $48,540 for participating schools — Genesis Prep and Wallace, Lakeside, Kootenai, Clark Fork, Mullan, Kellogg and St. Maries high schools.

Proceeds from the raffle mostly support athletics, but also help fund facilities, school supplies, drama departments, associated student body programs, book clubs and National Honor Society programming.

The multi-school raffle has been held for at least five years. Since 2017, 16,761 tickets have been sold to raise $167,610 for the participating schools.

Jonah Namson of Post Falls Volkswagen has supported the raffle since 2017. This year, he partnered with Nick Nivette of Coeur d'Alene Nissan and Osburn-based Zanetti Bros., Inc. to sweeten the annual raffle with a brand new black 2023 Nissan Frontier truck.

With four kids, the Greilach family decided to trade in the Frontier for a newer Chevy Traverse, a "people mover," as Greilach called it.

"We're looking at this going, 'It only has four seats,'" she said. "I have a lot of kids, so we need a lot of seats."

Greilach said it was awesome to win the big prize in a raffle that supports programming for students while giving parents' pocketbooks a break.

"It’s really nice because it offsets what we have to spend on sports fees for the kids, which is a lot when you have four of them," Greilach said. "It was really cool that I won a truck."

MORE FRONT-PAGE-SLIDER STORIES

Genesis Prep mom wins truck
Coeur d'Alene Press | Updated 2 years, 4 months ago
Car raffle benefits smaller high schools
Coeur d'Alene Press | Updated 5 years, 4 months ago
Volkswagen fundraiser a massive success for local schools
Shoshone News-Press | Updated 7 years, 5 months ago

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