During the planning for PinkFest, Student Council (StuCo) members proposed a raffle to raise money for the PinkFest donations. To their disappointment, teen leadership teacher and StuCo sponsor Dena Schimming informed them of a law prohibiting certain raffles in Texas.

“Our principals informed us that this is something that couldn’t happen,” Mrs. Schimming said. “We have had some people who wanted to do raffles for several reasons, and we had to tell them that because of the law we can’t do it.”

According to the Charitable Raffle Enabling Act, only organizations including qualified religious societies, volunteer fire departments, volunteer Emergency Medical Services and nonprofit organizations can hold raffles.

“It [raffling] is considered a form of gambling,” Principal David Wright said. “I think it takes away one of the good opportunities to have a fundraiser in the school.”

Unable to hold a raffle, StuCo has turned to other methods, including a silent auction, to raise money for PinkFest.

“It was a little disappointing when I found out because it would have been an easier way to earn money but we did a couple of car washes and everything turned out okay,” senior Nikki Childs, who helped with ideas for PinkFest fundraising, said.

Jim Mattox, the Attorney General of Texas from 1983 to 1991, declared charitable raffles, held in independent school districts, impermissible under the Charitable Raffle Enabling Act.

“This year we’re being very successful with PinkFest,” Mrs. Schimming said.” I think that we just have to be creative and instead of doing a raffle we just need to do an auction. If we change the way we do it a little bit we still can be successful because people are so passionate about PinkFest that we’ve already been successful raising money.”