Raffle

The Otterbein woman is worried. A starter home she bought in California three years ago as an investment is languishing. Apparently the property can be neither rented nor sold. And with house payments of $1,000 a month, she can't afford to carry it much longer."I'm afraid I'm going to end up in the almshouse. I'm very scared. It feels like it's completely out of my control. I never want my name on a mortgage again," she says.Actually, the Long Beach home didn't seem like such a bad purchase when the young woman bought it in 1988.

A Baltimore gun owners group plans to raffle an expensive semiautomatic pistol in a mock "salute" to a Baltimore state senator who is trying to ban the use of handguns as prizes in such drawings. The Associated Gun Clubs of Baltimore said yesterday that it would sell tickets nationwide for the raffle of a .45-caliber Baer Premier II handgun, which it dubbed the "SB341 Hoffman Special," to protest Sen. Barbara A. Hoffman's Senate Bill 341. "We're holding [the raffle] specifically because Barbara Hoffman has taken it upon herself to become the thought police and attempt to ban the raffle of a perfectly legal and constitutional product," said John Josselyn, legislative vice president of the group.

An 11-year-old Westminster boy won last month's eighth annual Advent Train Garden fund-raiser raffle for Carroll County Food Sunday. Kyle Mosley, son of Ed and Shawnee Mosley, won the 4-by-9-foot N-gauge train layout in the drawing Dec. 22. Kyle's grandmother bought six tickets and gave three to him. His winning number was 14. Carroll County Food Sunday earned more than $4,000 from the raffle, said Derek Anderson, board chairman for the organization that...

John Simms III went to the playground this summer and learned a lesson about how to help those less fortunate.The 11-year-old used $1 from his allowance and bought a raffle ticket to raise money for The Lighthouse, a homeless shelter on West Street.John was one of more than 500 children from throughout Annapolis who raised $743 by raffling off a stereo, a cassette player and a radio, all donated by Baltimore Gas & Electric Co.Of that amount, $400 went to The Lighthouse. The rest went into a trip fund for the city's playgrounds, to take the children to the National Zoo and the Smithsonian next year.

Michael P. Corbett, a single father raising three children in Sudbury, Mass., Richard Facemyer, a chemist living in Columbia, Mo., and Randy D. Hix, a computer technician from Marietta, Ga., don't know each other, but they have a few things in common. They have never set foot in Carroll County and would be hard pressed to find it on a map. But when these gun rights advocates heard about the furor sparked by a Carroll County Republican group's handgun raffle, they reached for their checkbooks and asked: How can I get my hands on a chance?

There are no such things in life as a free lunch, or a $100 house. Yet there seems to be a growing number of ever-so-tantalizing home raffles popping up, as more homeowners embrace innovative ways to beat the housing slump. Two are running in Maryland right now. For $100 a pop, you can try your luck at scoring a $550,000 home in Dunkirk or a $186,000 home in Owings Mills. It sounds like a win-win for all involved. Ticket buyers get a chance at a realty gold mine, homeowners unload property in a down market and a charity gets a slice of the pie. But be warned that this little adventure is not for the faint of heart or the ill-prepared.

THE DEVICE sells for $10 -- and might save a life. It's called a child safety or trigger lock. You could own one by finding a store that sells them -- or by winning a raffle sponsored by the Howard County Democratic Central Committee. Tickets are $1. But, surely, the Howard group's effort has more to do with philosophy than fund raising. The Howard event seems more like a needle directed at Republicans in neighboring Carroll County, where the GOP recently raffled off a 9mm handgun worth about $500.

Amid renewed debate over a gun raffle to benefit Carroll County Republicans, a Baltimore-area state senator plans to introduce legislation that would prohibit offering a handgun as a prize in such a contest. Sen. Barbara A. Hoffman, a Democrat whose district includes parts of the city and Baltimore County, has told a Manchester couple whose 13-year-old son died in an accidental shooting two years ago that she would push for such a ban. "We have worked with the senator on several bills, and she has told us she is willing to sponsor one that would ban gun raffles," said John Price, who approached Hoffman with his wife, Carole.

Carroll County Food Sunday is accustomed to generous donations as the holidays approach, but this year the charity is getting an entire town - a tiny one, for sure, but one many consider valuable. D. Robert Beglin, an 81-year-old retiree, built a replica of a mid-20th-century railroad town in the basement of his Westminster home. He has offered it to Food Sunday. "This is the thing to do with it," the longtime collector said. "Somebody will benefit in some way from it. For somebody who likes to collect, this is a real prize."

When it comes to Erika Brannock, a Cockeysville resident who lost her lower left leg in the Boston Marathon bombing, and Brannock's mother, Carol Downing, the staff at Graul's Market in Hereford consider them part of the family. Brannock, a preschool teacher at Trinity Episcopal Children's Center, in Towson, worked in the store's deli department while she was in college and grad school, and she still keeps in close touch with her former co-workers. "Erika worked here for six and a half years before she became a teacher," said store manager Ken Bullen.