Finally -- you can buy tickets for the 2007 Villa Raffle benefitting the Treasure Beach Foundation's Scholarship Fund.



We are raffling off a week at Rainbow Point Villa. Rainbow Point will sleep up to six in three bedrooms. It's on the sea with exquisite views up and down the coast, and it has its own pool. The loving villa staff will make you three delicious meals a day and handle your cleaning and laundry needs.

In addition to the week (Saturday to Saturday) at Rainbow Point, the winner will receive round-trip airport transfers from MoBay or Kingston, a Black River boat trip, and massages -- all courtesy of Treasure Beach residents who are doing their best to support the Scholarship Fund.

A copy of the brochure at the top of this message is available as a PDF you can download below. We encourage you to email the PDF to anyone who might be interested.

You can also get the information you need by going to http://www.rainbowtreevillas.com/foundation.html. Go to "Tour Rainbow Point" to see the villa itself.

Tickets are $25 (U.S.) each or five for $100. The deadline for receipt of money for the tickets is August 31, 2007. You can either mail your check or buy tickets online by hitting the "Donate Now" button on the Foundation page. (If you choose to mail a check, please allow sufficient time for it to reach us.) The winning ticket will be drawn the evening of September 4 and will be announced on TreasureBeach.net as soon as the winner is notified. The winner has one year to use Rainbow Point (on a space-available basis).

100% of the proceeds are going to the Scholarship Fund. We now have 11 students on scholarship, hope to continue to support them next year, and want to award even more scholarships in 2008. So your support is very important.

2007_raffle_brochure TBF2007.pdf (324.3 k)

I have stayed at Rainbow Point (which I won through a similar charity raffle). It is awesome! It was one of the most relaxing vacations of my life. The house is great, the staff is super friendly, the breeze is constant and wonderful. You couldn't ask for a more peaceful place to unwind from the world than Rainbow Point. I highly recommend it to anyone.

Stefan Strein
Columbia, MD

I just bought my raffle tickets. You should too. Its a great cause and a great prize!

For those who don't know about the Raffle or its cause, funding scholarships given to local high school students, here are links you can view for more information.

2007 SCHOLARSHIP COMPETITION TO START

2007/08 Scholarship Winners Announced

2007/08 Scholarship Announcements Coming

2006 Winners

2006 Scholarship Winners in Gleaner Story



If you know of anyone who might be interested in helping the scholarship fund (and winning a free week at a great beach front villa), forward this information to them. I suggest downloading the raffle brochure PDF in the above message and sending that.

I can only confirm what Stefan said about Rainbow Point. It's an absolutely fantastic place with superb stuff, and we had one of the best holidays of our lifes there. I already bought my tickets and asked all my friends to buy some, hoping that if they win they'll take me along for a free stay in this awesome place :-))

My check is in the mail. May I suggest that we share this raffle opportunity with our churches and other civic organization that we may be members of.
Good luck to all!!! We're all winners for having the opportunity to positively impact lives.

I have just bought a raffel ticket for this wonderful cause, however I only left my email and home address details as a notification of if I have won? How does one get notified?

Thank and this is such a great idea to raise money!

I am a teacher and a new visitor to Treasure Beach. I find it incredible that the schools do not even provide bus service to the schools for the students, though I realize I am comparing Jamaica to what I know from the United States. Knowing how slowly government moves, I can't imagine the students will ever be provided such necessary services. This Foundation is a wonderful undertaking. I hope everyone appreciates the impact an education can make on the life of not just one child but that child's family and entire community. I am proud Treasure beach is supporting such a wonderful charity.

As the principal of Sandy Bank Primary School, I can feel the excitment building up inside of me as I read about the launch of the raffle that will provide more scholarship for the students from my school.Words cannot express what this means to teachers students and parents alike for this venture.

This year more than ever the students taking the Grade Six Achievement Test pulled out all the stop to ensure that they were one of the scholarship owners.This has helped the school to come out on top with 15 of the 21 students sitting the examination getting averages between 59.5% and 88.5%.The students are used to working hard but the thought of getting a scholarship at the end has caused them to work harder.More parents are now putting in more effort to help the their children succeed. The look on their faces when the announcement was made of the winners is priceless.I can truly say that the advent of this awarding of scholarship to the students of Sandy Bank Primary School is amost valued and appreaciated one.

Our committment as Teachers is to ensure that we continue to work as as hard as we can to help our students to be the best that they can be because as our motto says "AIM HIGH" That what we do at our school.I say to everyone who buys a raffle ticket even if you lose the prize you will be a winner because you will be helping someone to go on to high school in order to make something good of themselves.This year not only five from the year before will benefit but an additional six making a total of eleven students have been given scholarships.So buy a ticket so six more students can be helped in the new school year.

THANKS, THANKS, THANKS IN A MILLION.

-Principal Norma Moxam

Important Things to Remember with Online Ticket Purchases:

* If you choose to be an "Anonymous Donor," you will not get any raffle tickets, and you will not have the opportunity to win the villa vacation. We will still get your donation, and we will most certainly appreciate it. But we must have your name and contact information to send your tickets. (I hope I have been clear in explaining that. If you don't tell us who you are, how can we send you a ticket or enter you in the raffle?)

* If you choose not to be an anonymous donor, we will receive your name, mailing address, e-mail, and phone number if you supply them to the firm that processes all our online donations. That means you'll be sent tickets, and you'll be entered in the villa raffle. And, we will do our best to find you based on the information you supplied.

Important Thing to Remember with Ticket Purchases by Check:

* Please also enclose your telephone number(s) and e-mail address so we can contact you if you win.

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If anyone who has bought a ticket is concerned I may not know how to contact you, please e-mail me directly.

To reach the masses with this great opportunity I printed several copies of the flier and post it! supermarket community service bulletin board-post it! public laudromats bulletin boards-post it! Gated Community clubhouse has a community board-post it! neighborhood/community businesses-ask to post it! Employee lounges-post it!Instead of sending and forwarding useless chain letters bulk email this flier to friends and family and ask them to forward it to everyone in their email address book. Get six people you will vacation with together and buy group raffles(5) increasing your chances of winning.Let's make 2007 the best raffle year!

Thanks to all of you for your wonderful support.

Please, please, please remember not to check "Anonymous Donor" on the online donation form unless you do not want raffle tickets. If you do not supply us with your name and address on that form, we have no way to know who gave the money -- and cannot possibly send you tickets. So, be very careful when filling out the form; take an extra minute to be sure you are doing it correctly.

The poster is so pretty. Who designed it?

So many people have contributed to this effort.

Marcia Ente, an award-winning art director from Sarasota, Florida designed the flyer.

Bridget Rutter from Kalk Bay, South Africa did the HTML coding (what you see after you go to http://www.rainbowtreevillas.com/foundation.html and hit the "Win A Week ..." on the bottom left).

Suzanne White, from Bradenton, Florida (and a frequent guest at Villa Arcadia) offered to help and arranged for Marcia and Bridget to do the work.

Joe Natoli, an award-winning Web designer from Baltimore, Maryland designed the Treasure Beach Foundation portion of the site.

Dennis (Shabba) Abrahams of Treasure Beach is donating the boat trip for the winners.

Aman Parchment of Treasure Beach is donating the round-trip airport transportation for the winners.

Joshua Stein of Treasure Beach is donating the massages for the winners.

Last, and certainly not least, Eric, our esteemed TreasureBeach.net Webmaster, and Rebecca of Treasure Tours have spent time making all this appear on TB.net. Plus, Eric has had to put up with my limited knowledge of IT.

Thank you to everyone!

If necessary because of Dean, could Treasure Beach Foundation collect donations for emergency relief supplies as you did after Ivan in 2004?

Absolutely!! This would be a totally separate fundraising effort -- nothing to do with the raffle. If need be, we will post information here on TB.net, and we will be prepared to take online donations for this immediately after such a posting. And, as we did after Ivan, Peter and I stand ready to go to Treasure Beach to help with any emergency relief efforts.

Meanwhile, let's all stay positive and pray for the residents of Treasure Beach and all of Jamaica.

I encourage you to continue to keep buying raffle tickets. No matter what happens with Dean, we will still need to educate the youth of Treasure Beach. Assuming what happens with Dean, it is likely that the need for funds will be even greater because many families will have even less resources to send their children to school.

When we will know if there will be a collection for emergency funds? Will it be possible to also send supplies?

We will hopefully know a lot more by tomorrow. Please understand that several of us are doing our best to coordinate things here in the U.S. to make it more straightforward for you. Please do not send any money for possible relief efforts to Treasure Beach Foundation until an official announcement is made. (Until such time, any donations to TBF will continue to go to the scholarship fund.)

A donation to Karen's foundation to benefit the fantastic children of Treasure Beach is a wonderful thing.
A donation with a chance to win a week in paradise with all of the extras thrown in is amazing!
What have we got to lose? Our check is on the way.
Thank you Karen for the opportunity and all of your hard work.

Who won the raffle?

Steve and Phyllis Lerman won. They live in the Boston area and are frequent visitors to Treasure Beach.