No Limitz Raffle for Ryan
At the 2005 International Amateur Open team No Limitz had the idea to try to raise some money for Ryan and his family. We asked around all day Wednesday and Thursday and got a minimal response. But late on Thursday, we were donated an Empire Reloader B, and told we should "raffle it off or something", and so it started. Alex Richison, of Team No Limitz, headed out to start promoting our raffle and got a few more prizes. He also got Craig Miller at the Draxxus booth to agree to use his PA system to help promote our raffle.
Well, that night Team No Limitz went to Staples, and bought all of the supplies necessary to have a raffle, all of the signs were drawn up and we were ready to roll.
We arrived at the field around 11:00 am Friday morning, and began selling tickets. We had a pretty good amount of response as we walked around the players areas, and we really felt that this raffle thing was going to work. But all of a sudden the Nextel chirped, and we were told we needed Alex to get to the Draxxus booth immediately. Our hearts sank, we thought there was a problem.
We arrived at the Draxxus tent to hear Craig Miller telling Alex there is another vendor who has a problem with our raffle and basically made it sound as though we may not be able to do the raffle at all. Our minds raced to find a solution, we had already sold tickets and we were dumbfounded that this could happen. But then Craig said something that would change our weekend, and Ryan's life forever. He pointed to a stack of merchandise on the counter...he said that he had been announcing the story about Ryan and what we were trying to do for him and as people heard it, they decided to jump on board. We now had several more products to raffle off!
That was just the beginning, Craig promptly announced where Team No Limitz could be found, in the Draxxus tent. From that point on, we never left the tent. We couldn't leave the tent because we were constantly bombarded with ticket sales, and a seemingly endless stream of donations. Our prize list grew so quickly we literally could not keep our lists updated. The rest of the afternoon there was a massive outpouring of love to help Ryan Hewitt. We sold hundreds of raffle tickets, and received thousands of dollars in prizes to be placed in the raffle. I would not hesitate to consider saying this may have been the largest prize-package for a raffle in paintball history!
In the end Team No Limitz raised 3,000 from the raffle alone. Center Flags, Dennis Ashley, was offering airbrushed tattoos for people and taking donations from them.. He then gave all of the donations he received to the No Limitz team to give to Ryan. The tattoos netted a near $200 also, giving us a total of $3200!
Team No Limitz would like to thank everyone who helped us out that day. The link below will take you to a complete list of everyone who helped out.. If you helped us out with prizes and are not mentioned please let me know, and understand that we literally couldn't keep track.. For those of you who were there you should understand. It was truly a moving experience, it seemed almost every 20-30 minutes Craig was announcing another vendor who was donating. Or vendors who had decided to donate even more stuff. Thanks again for making this event a success, and you should all be proud to have been a part of such an amazing experience.