Our December raffle winner Lara and her husband Dan
Detective work to track down December raffle winner
The process of contacting the winners of our raffle draws is usually quite straightforward, but the winner of our December draw proved a little bit more elusive! Lara, one of our Royalty VIP Club members, held the winning ticket 64192 in the December 2021 draw and had scooped the major prize of $10,000 cash. However, it wasn’t easy trying to get hold of her to let her know she had won!
Royal Life Saving WA Senior Manager of Fundraising and Membership, Laura Kazmirowicz, said that staff were determined to track her down and described the detective work it took to get Lara's winnings to her. “We tried calling the mobile we had on file a few days before Christmas after doing the draw on December 21st. It rang out twice with no voicemail, then on the third attempt someone answered – but it wasn’t Lara. We had the wrong number.”
Staff then sent emails to the address the monthly raffle tickets went to and received no response, but also no bounce-backs. This was followed up with a registered letter sent to the address on file, before our Chief Marketing Officer personally knocked on the door of the address. Nobody was home, but he slipped a note under the door containing his mobile number and asking someone to call him as he was looking for Lara.
“We had searched Google and Facebook for her name, email and mobile, with no results that looked correct or even close,” Laura said. With no response to the emails, registered letter or hand-delivered note, a staff member Googled the address and discovered a realestate.com.au listing stating that the property had been sold in December 2019.
“I called the listing agent on the off chance that he remembered them and still had their contact details,” said Laura. “I explained that I was calling from Royal Life Saving and we were trying to get in touch with Lara, one of our supporters, with some good news. He remembered the name, said they weren’t the owners and they had been renting. However, the same agency also managed the rental, so I asked if he could get in touch with them and ask them to call me back.”
Lara’s husband Dan returned Laura’s call the next day and confirmed their previous address. He said they were now living in Queensland and confirmed Lara’s mobile number…it turned out we had the last digit wrong in our records! “I called Lara to give her the good news,” said Laura. “She answered the phone because her husband had sent her a text telling her to answer when a number she didn’t recognise called her shortly!”
Lara had been a Royal Life Saving WA member since 2017, but she and her husband had returned to Queensland in 2019 to be closer to family. "I had completely forgotten about supporting Royal Life Saving with a monthly donation," Lara says. "When I got the phone call and learnt how hard the Royal Life Saving team had worked to track me down, given I’d left for the other side of the country, I was extremely grateful and overwhelmed.
“Not super sure how I intend to spend the money as yet. I will more than likely use it on creating some special memories with my family and probably make the journey back to WA to visit the places we never got a chance to see before we moved. I feel so grateful to have won this amazing prize, one could only dream of winning something like this in their lifetime and I NEVER win anything, so this was truly amazing.
“I would encourage others to support local groups within their communities in any way they possibly can. The past few years with everything that’s happened in the world has really made me realise how important it is to live and support the local. It will change people’s lives, just like it did mine.”
You can learn more about supporting the work of Royal Life Saving through our Royalty VIP club at the link below. Who knows? You may just be our next success story!
