The Friends of the Wareham Free Library were the big winners at last night's Gateman/Chatham contest, taking home $343 as their portion of the 50/50 Raffle.

Gatemen officials declared that the winnings were from the largest single raffle earnings to date. So the Friends would like to thank the many library fans and supporters who came to the game and bought raffle tickets. A special thanks to the Gatemen for their generosity in donating their portion of the raffle to the Friends.

FIRST PITCH: Kara Young was the winner of the free raffle held in the Children's Room of the library. Children put their names into the raffle, and on Friday, July 8th, at 11 am in the library, one of the Gatemen pulled Kara's name during the Gatemen Story Time. Kara will be going into the fourth grade at Minot Forest this year. She wrote a message that was read to the crowd before she threw the ball. Her message read, "I love baseball and soccer, but I really love to READ."  Then Kara threw the ball and watched it sail to home plate where it was deftly caught by the Gateman catcher.

PLAY BALL: The names of four other children were pulled from the raffle. These baseball fans gathered on the field and in unison yelled "Play Ball" to the crowd to start the game. These winners were Kate and Jenna Iacobacci and Bridget and Owen Irving.

Thanks to everyone for making this community event a success.