Lithia Dodge donates Jeep to raise $55,000 for Pocatello high schools

One lucky winner walked away with a brand new car from Lithia Dodge in Pocatello Thursday night.

The three local high schools – Century, Highland and Pocatello – all got 10,000 raffle tickets from Lithia to sell to win the car.

The schools sold the tickets for $2 each, earning up to $20,000 per school. One of the high schools sold of its tickets, the other two were just shy of selling them all. Total, the schools raised around $55,000 from the raffle.

All of the tickets were put in to a drawing to win a 2017 Jeep Renegade Sport, donated by Lithia Dodge.

Lithia will also pay the sales tax on the car also, making it a giveaway value of around $27,000.

The money raised from the raffle will go toward helping each school’s programs and athletics. It will help students with participating fees, uniforms, equipment costs, maintenance, and wherever else its needed.

“The idea actually came when I had three high school students and they were all participating in fall activities and those falls activities totaled $1,000,” said Reid Garrett, general manager for Lithia. “And I thought you know that’s a lot of money and there’s a lot of families, I think, that could struggle paying that kind of money and we wanted to provide an avenue back for those students who maybe didn’t have that kind of money to participate in the programs to be able to do that.”

“All of that money goes to programs and athletics for students so it’s really beneficial,” said Highland High’s principal Brad Wallace. “Our programs are self sustaining so this money that comes in really helps increase participation and opportunities for kids.”

This is the second year Lithia has donated a car for the school district to raffle off. Last year, it also brought in around $55,000.

The winning name that was drawn was Leesa Coates from Chubbuck.