Rick Eder will remember 2014 as a year of community honor and great luck.
This summer, he was chosen as Chelsea’s Citizen of the Year and will be a guest of honor tonight at the Chelsea Comfort Inn and Village Conference Center. (Also to be honored tonight is Lifetime Achievement Winner Lenard McDougall.)
On Oct. 17, Eder’s raffle ticket was chosen as the winner of the Chelsea Area Chamber of Commerce car raffle at halftime of the Chelsea-Dexter football game.
“I was shocked,” he said after his name was called as the winner. Eder standing just below the press box in the rain when Tom Hollandworth pulled the ticket worth $5,950.
“The chamber’s awesome; I’ll be a member for life,” he said with a big smile Wednesday afternoon at Village Motor Sales where he was given a giant check with the total of his winnings.
Eder said that his children had already come up with all the ways the money could be spent while driving home from the football game.
This was the inaugural year of the chamber fundraiser car raffle and 119 tickets were sold. “We are thrilled,” said Bruce Szcodronski, president of the chamber, especially since we got a late start selling tickets.
In 2015, “We plan to come out of the gate in January,” Szcodronski said.
Co-chairman of the event, Eddie Greenleaf and Ian Boone, said they are looking forward to making the fundraiser even better next year.
The chamber plans to use the funds to support the many chamber programs available to members and to set up a scholarship through the Chelsea District Schools, which will be awarded to a student who plans to study business in college, said Bob Pierce, executive director of the chamber.
