THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, August 30, 1994 TAG: 9408300437
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MARGARET TALEV, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 68 lines
When tourist season ends and vacationers go home, 47 homes that rent for up to $4,000 per week on the Outer Bank's northern beaches will still be earning money - but not for their owners.
Instead, they'll be contributing to the American Cancer Society through the Hermits Hideaway Vacation Raffle, a $5 a ticket fund-raiser started this year by the society's Dare County chapter.
Owners of the resort homes from Southern Shores to Corolla donated as raffle prizes one-week vacations in their houses in late October or early November.
``It's very fulfilling for them, I think, if they know about the people who've won,'' said Southern Shores resident Clair Sutton, cancer survivor and raffle organizer.
Twenty-three of the one-week vacations were given away in early August at a raffle in Corolla. Three of the winners were registered nurses who deal with cancer patients. Another winner, from Elizabeth City, had a child who had died of cancer.
The remaining 24 vacations will be given away on Sept. 17, at the North Beach Trash Festival.
``For some people maybe it's a tax write off,'' said volunteer Jean Newcomb of Colington Harbour. ``But I think that cancer has touched so many people's lives that they're real willing to participate.''
Newcomb's mother died of cancer in January.
Sutton said August raffle winners have been as giving as the owners who donated their homes. One winner, Pete MacMurray of Vienna, Va., returned his week-long prize back to Sutton, asking her to give it instead to a cancer patient.
``I thought it would get a lot better use if there was a cancer family that might want to use it as a getaway for the whole family,'' he said.
``I have a house in Duck which Clair Sutton designed. When I knew she was getting into this I said give me a whole bunch of tickets and I'll try to sell them up here.
``I was just donating the money. I didn't know I was going to win anything,'' said MacMurray, owner of PC Flower, one of the largest FTD florists in the United States.
Sutton said the statewide response from ticket buyers, resort owners and local real estate companies has been so good that next fall she will raffle mountain homes as well as ocean homes.
Sutton and Newcomb were successful in part because of local business connections. Newcomb works at Twiddy Real Estate. Sutton owns Sandcastle Design Group, a company that designs houses.
The raffle's other organizers are Jamie Shotton, whose husband is a builder, and Darcy Grosse, whose husband died of cancer.
Sutton learned she had cancer in 1981. ``The only reason I'm alive today is chemotherapy,'' she said. ``This is a way of me giving back a little.
``You really do feel like you're doing a little bit. You're not doing a lot, but all these little pieces put together do help.'' ILLUSTRATION: Graphic
RAFFLE DETAILS
What: A raffle Sept. 17 to benefit the American Cancer Society.
Prizes: 24 one-week fall vacations in Outer Banks resort homes.
Tickets may be purchased at Outer Banks rental agencies from
Southern Shores to Corolla or by mailing $5 per ticket and a
self-addressed stamped envelope to: Hermits Hideaway, P.O. Box 8081,
Duck, N.C. 27949.
by CNB