Some good comments...A couple of points...
Yes, St.Paul is a Catholic school. Jeff and I were raised Roman Catholic and by no means are we some religious quacks or pushing that on people. I am respectful of all religions and don't want that to affect this discussion and raffle. We are products of public schools and they were great. St. Paul is a great school. Period. It has kids from all religions and races in it. They teach respect and morals and if that is part of the religious aspect of it, then more schools should include it in my opinion. I am really the last person to preach about religion, so please don't let this deter you from giving.
The chances of winning are pretty good, especially for a few of the sets. When I go to a charity event and a person asks me to buy a 50/50, I don't ask the odds, I just buy some tickets. That's how I roll.
As for the "elite" section, I am going to be completely honest here. For years, we have discussed charging people to use this site. Many members have requested "elite" forums. I have always been the advocate to keep the site FREE. I have always wanted to give people MORE, for nothing. This site is not Brickset or Eurobricks. This site discusses LEGO bricks, but it has deep ties to MONEY. People MAKE MONEY from this site, yet we have kept it free. We ask for a few links to be clicked on to help support the site at no real cost to members. Nothing more. Go try to discuss these topics on the other sites and you will be banned from the site in time. They don't want to focus on such tacky topics. It's just the way that it is and I respect their views on the subject. Countless times I have defended the community here, saying that is was more than a bunch of hack resellers who took LEGO sets from Little Timmy, only to sell them for double the MSRP. I might be a sap for not making the site a pay site, but I am a giver.
That being said, Jeff and I don't support ourselves with this site in any way, shape or form. We have real jobs. This site is a passion of ours and the thousands of hour we put into each year is not about money, because if it was, we would have shut it down years ago. The book we wrote was hundreds of hours of work for little return amounting to less than minimum wage returns. So what keeps the site going, growing and improving? Our loyalty and responsibility to YOU and the people that do support us, silly as it seems. I believe in Karma and Kismet (my two dead dogs) and believe that if I help people, it will come back to me. So far, I have been blessed by good fortune.
So I ask the community of thousands to dig a little deeper to help some kids and teachers. I will add some more sets from our personal collections. I will also add some sets from generous members. I really appreciate those who have given so far and I look forward to thanking more people in the future....