Someday Isle, located at 250 West Main Street, Isle, is home to “something for everyone” in the community. The Someday Isle shop sells locally made artisan crafts for vendors from the community. The people of the area have an opportunity to shop for unique and sometimes rare gifts and useful household items.

The Creative Center is home to an after school arts program that has touched the lives of many of the teenagers in the larger community. Two major arts events, funded in part by the State Arts Board for the State Legislature, have set in motion Printmaking and Clay studio activity that is ongoing and reaching new youth and adults each year.

Support for this community resource is dependent on the good will of community members and those who have contact with the site based organizations which have developed over time.   Each organization is connected to us through our mission, to help people create incomes for themselves.

Bear Creek CDC has become a partner that facilitates community organizing. The modest successes of the last year are hopeful beginnings. McGrath has an organized history group that has attracted attention from the Preservation Society to help restore the McGrath Bank building, the Isle Healthy Community Partnership holds regular “Meetings on Main” at the 250 West Main Street storefront. The Farmers Market had its beginnings in front of our building and with the assistance of organizing through the federal VISTA program.

Coming soon, the Central Woodlands Exchange is starting up with a financial assist from Central Minnesota Council on Aging. We will be helping people connect to useful services where everyone who contributes an hour can earn and everyone has something to give.

Why a Raffle? Why now?

Support for local community activities that are as varied as ours are will not come from major funders who want to change one or another ill or problem in society. And we are not so interested in changing things as in giving more people access to things that work. We work to do that in a community where the good news is experienced and shared with everyone else in the community.

Charitable gaming is one way the State of Minnesota allows not for profit organizations, such as Depot Studios, to raise needed funds in the communities they serve. Although we could have many different combinations of prizes, we cannot convince everyone that the prizes we offer are valuable to them. The cash prizes we offer in our Calendar raffle will be useful to anyone winning. The fact that every name will be eligible for every prize is going to keep us on the minds of everyone who holds a ticket.

Having as many people as we can holding a raffle ticket by the end of December is the goal for this raffle. All dollars spent for tickets will remain either in the community through the support of the vote you cast with your ticket, or through winnings by someone to whom we’ve sold a ticket. Typically, only a little over half of lottery revenue goes to the community and winners combined.

Donors have purchased blocks of tickets from which we will be able to reward everyone who sells ten tickets to friends or contacts. Sell ten tickets and receive one free for your own fun. This is not a discount but the gifting of a ticket purchased for 100% of the face value of the ticket. Donor purchases will guarantee the full funding of prizes and the base of sales needed to make this a successful “fun” fundraiser.

Thank you! See for yourself! Fun and fundraising can be one and the same.