Go hard or go home: Rural school raffles Ranger for new playground

Ashley Rakahuri School pupils get behind the PTA’s ambitious Ford Ranger raffle fundraiser for a new playground. From left: Emmy Gregory-Hunt, Brody Gregory-Hunt, Stevie Dyer, Lucy Young, Zoey Gascoyne, Milla Dyer, Evie Clifford and Beaudan Clifford. Supplied.

After five years of fundraising for a new playground, Ashley Rakahuri School parents realised they were facing a frustrating problem.

They were raising money, but inflation was rising almost as quickly.

“We were finding we were only making enough money to combat inflation,” PTA chairperson Emma Clifford said.

“Every year that we weren't making the money we needed, inflation was kicking in and what we were raising was only covering that.”

So the small North Canterbury school decided it was time to go big.

Its PTA has launched the biggest fundraiser it has ever attempted, a nationwide raffle with a brand-new 2026 Ford Ranger XLT Double Cab 3.0D 4WD, valued at up to $74,000, as first prize.

There are just 5000 tickets available at $40 each, with a $2000 second prize and $1000 third prize.

For Clifford and the other parents behind the fundraiser, it was a case of “go hard or go home”.

The school has already raised around $65,000 towards replacing its playground over the past five years, but Clifford said the pace of fundraising meant some of the children whose parents were doing the work could leave before they ever got to enjoy it.

“We were putting all this work into fundraising and our own children weren't even going to be able to benefit from the playground,” she said.

“We just thought, we can't have that.”

The existing playground is more than 30 years old and about half of it was removed two years ago because of safety issues.

While the remaining equipment is still safe, Clifford said it increasingly required repairs and continuing to patch it up made little financial sense.

“We'd be patching it up for years and years and it would just be a big money pit.”

Replacing it is also about making the playground accessible to all of the school's children.

Ashley Rakahuri School currently has pupils who use wheelchairs and cannot properly access the existing bark-covered playground.

The new design is expected to include wheelchair-accessible equipment, ramps and suitable matting, while retaining the adventurous feel of a rural school playground.

“We still want it to have that country adventure playground,” Clifford said.

“We still want it to have lots of climbing.”

The concept currently with designers includes a large tower and climbing equipment, with the final design expected soon.

Ashley Rakahuri School currently has 184 pupils, with its roll expected to reach about 195 by the end of the year.

Clifford describes it as a tight-knit community school with strong intergenerational connections.

Her own son is a second-generation pupil, following his father and his father's siblings through the school, and many other local families have similar histories.

The idea of raffling a vehicle came from another PTA member, who had seen a similar fundraiser run for the Twizel Medical Centre.

The group then approached Team Hutchinson Ford to see whether it could secure a Ranger at a price that would make the numbers work.

From there, Clifford said, the PTA simply ran with the idea.

It has not been a small undertaking.

Five parents make up the raffle subcommittee and Clifford estimates they are collectively putting in more than 20 hours of administration each week.

But she said concentrating the effort into one intensive fundraiser made more sense than asking families to repeatedly support smaller initiatives throughout the year.

“The amount of work that goes into lots of little fundraisers is huge,” she said.

“If we could do this massive pressure over three months as opposed to lots of little ones over the year, that was the idea.”

The PTA was also conscious of cost-of-living pressures when setting the $40 ticket price.

 “We understand that because we're all families too. Forty dollars is not a little amount of money. That's coming out of families' back pockets.”

Limiting the raffle to 5000 tickets, rather than selling 10,000 at a lower price, was a deliberate decision to give entrants better odds.

The PTA hopes a sell-out could raise around $100,000 towards the playground and potentially allow construction to begin next year.

Around 3400 tickets have already sold, leaving 1600 to go in the final weeks.

The raffle closes on September 24, with the winners drawn on September 25.

For Clifford, getting those final tickets sold would mean more than reaching a fundraising target.

It would mean that after five years of sausage sizzles, raffles and countless volunteer hours, the school's children could finally see the playground their community has been working towards become a reality.