What day is the raffle over? What is the last day I can mail in my money? Sorry for asking if I am supposed to already know.

Your money must be received here no later than April 27. If you are mailing a check from the United States, there is still time. If you are paying from outside the U.S., the easiest and safest way to do it is online. As we get closer to the deadline, I would suggest everyone uses online payment; we get notification of your transaction within minutes.

In light of the stoppage/delay of air traffic out of Europe, I would highly suggest online payment.

Me again. I am sort of trying to figure out my odds of winning. Is this the kind of raffle where thousands and thousands of tickets are sold?

I can't tell you your odds of winning because I don't know how many tickets will be sold. We definitely won't sell thousands, but that would be fantastic for the children.

The first batch of villa raffle tickets is being mailed this morning from the post office. Please tell us when you receive yours; we are not as interested in who you are--but where you are located. We are particularly interested in those tickets mailed to Europe.

Thank you.

Don't forget to tell us when you receive your tickets. (More are being mailed this morning.)

Received mine today in Ohio, USA.

New Hampshire reporting in.

I need to say how wonderful the raffle ticket package is. The photos of the ecstatic winners from 2009 was worth the price of my ticket. Thank you Treasure Beach Foundation for making all this possible.

Are there two photos sandwiched into one? The winners look all prim and proper in the middle and they are jumping for joy around the edges. I guess you would need a photo to see what I mean because I don't think I'm explaining it right.

Thanks for the compliments. Yes, the photo of the 2009 scholarship winners is a double image. It combines the posed portrait of the winners with the one of them photographed when their names were announced.

YIPPIE we got our tickets !! INDIANA

Hey "Indiana", where are you??? We are in Lafayette!

Received ours Friday. Wonderful cause.

I'm in the Los Angeles area. Got mine yesterday.

Wisconsin got ours on Saturday!

Us, too, Friday.

What happens if I do not receive my tickets before the winning tickets are drawn?

You do not have to have your ticket to be able to win. What we are sending everyone is one-half of a larger ticket--with both sides having the identical number. If your number is drawn, you win. Plain and simple.

When and how do we find out who won. My ticket says the raffle drawing is on April 29, 2010.

The winning tickets will be drawn about 8:30 p.m. Thursday evening, East Coast (U.S. time). Then, we will do our best to contact the winners. With their permission, their names will get posted.

If we cannot reach the winners or if one or both refuse to allow their names to be posted, we will still submit something to TB.net--perhaps the number(s) of the winning tickets.

We will also send a mass e-mail out to everyone who purchased a ticket, most probably on Friday or Saturday.

Thank you to all those who bought raffle tickets or made a donation.

Please note we gratefully accept donations all year long.

To make donating as painless as possible, you can go online and specify an automatic amount to be donated every month--or every quarter; it doesn't have to be much. We do our best to use your money as wisely as possible. Every cent counts.

We can't afford our annual trip without winning. We are not used to staying in a villa though I have always wanted to. With the airfares up I'd have to sleep on the beach. Not good, especially with children.

Thanks to Treasure Beach Foundation for supporting the students of the place I love most in all the world.

Good luck to all who've purchased tickets. Naturally, I hope one of mine comes up as the winning entry, but I hope lots and lots of people have bought tickets because that means more money for student scholarships!

I don't know Stacie, but I think she is THE Stacie Evans who won one of the villas in the raffle. Based on this post from her yesterday morning before her ticket was selected, she must be a wonderful person. How nice she won.

Thanks so much, "thoughts." I am, indeed, the Stacie of the winning ticket for Rainbow Point. I am still flying from the news! I had already come to terms with the sad fact that I wouldn't be able to afford a trip to TB this year, and then to get home last night and find this wonderful surprise in my email ... too fabulous!

I promise to write a full trip report and post lost of photos!