1987 Friends at AJCC Raffle

The October 2009 Ha'Kol's “The Way We Were” featured the $10,000 Raffle – an AJCC fundraiser for several years during the 1980’s.  The event ran more or less as follows: the Center sold 300 tickets for $100 each.  On the evening of the event at a downtown hotel, after participants enjoyed dinner and drinks, ticket holders’ names and their numbers were placed on a board, with all the ticket stubs placed in a drum.  As stubs were picked from the drum, that ticket was eliminated and that ticket holder’s name was removed from the board.  At certain milestones, the Center awarded small prizes.  When the number of remaining tickets was reduced to a few, sometimes a bidding war took place for the remaining tickets.  The men in this photograph are smiling because they joined together to buy what turned out to be the winning ticket in 1987.  Behind them is the board, with all the names but one having been eliminated.  All this, years before “Deal or No Deal”….

 The Center Menorah issues for August and September, 1987, tell us that the 1987 AJCC raffle was held at the Hyatt Regency on August 23.  Top ticket sellers were Buzz Brody, Mark Harris, and David Weinstein.  The evening’s events were run by Jack Dill, Buzz Brody, Mark Harris, Paige Brody, and David Weinstein.  The September issue notes, “[t]hose who helped make the evening a memorable one were Mr. Joe Billig, Mr. and Mrs. Robert Brody, Mr. and Mrs. William Brody, Dr. Dennis Brown, Mr. Gordon Brown, Mr. George Busch, Mr. and Mrs. Jack Dill, Dr. and Mrs. Michael Eisenstadt, Mr. Arnold Elliott, Mr. Mike Feinman, Mr. Neil Foster, Mr. Bobby Goodfriend, Mr. and Mrs. Mark Harris, Dr. Jeff Hecht, Mr. Syd Himmelstein, Mr. Bobby Ivins, Mrs. Karen Jenkins, Mr. Bob Koppel, Mrs. Ruth Krasnow, Mr. and Mrs. Douglas Morrison, Mr. and Mrs. John Phelps, Mr. and Mrs. Ted Reback, Mr. and Mrs. Pace Robinson, Mr. David Weinstein, Mr. Barry Winston, and Mr. Barry Wolf.”