Duck Derby raises over $40,000 for Rotary Club, area organizations

The Rotary Club of Graham announced the preliminary results from the Duck Derby, with the club raising a total of $41,435 from their event held in September at Fireman’s Park. The annual event reached its goal of 10,000 rubber ducks sold and for the first time since the event began the course had a flowing stream to push the ducks to Salt Creek.

Each year, the event serves as a fundraiser for the club which provides for area scholarships, an area coat drive, the Graham Chamber of Commerce Teacher Appreciation Breakfast, Gear Up Graham, Habitat for Humanity, Spivey Hill Challenge, Graham Crisis Center and other local organizations and causes. Club President John Brown said Tuesday the event not only provided for the club, but for the partner organizations which help sell ducks.

“So total duck sales we got confirmation from GAME (that) all duck sales, excluding the day of the event, from online and from in-person sales we made a total of $41,435. That’s how much money in duck sales went on,” Brown said. “Now we also enlisted the help of third-party groups to help sell those ducks. So the Rotary Club will pay out to third party groups here in Graham, school groups, soccer teams, softball teams and whatnot, a little over $16,202 is what we will give immediately to the community. So right now this number isn’t final yet, but it looks like the Rotary Club is going to keep $25,233 is how much we are going to put into our bank account. So we put on a good event for the community, but also made some contributions to the community and put a little cash away for (a) rainy day (fund) and to do some more work throughout the rest of this year.”

For the rest of the story, see the Oct. 9 edition of The Graham Leader.