FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

No – you need not be present to win. We will attempt to contact the winner by phone call at the time of the raffle drawing, and if contact is not made, we will continue to attempt to contact the winner through additional means. The prize must be claimed by the winner within 90 days.

For the live drawing, we will use physical tickets with names applied onto the tickets with either ink or printed labels depending on how the ticket was purchased. Both online and offline ticket sales will receive a numbered ticket, however the timing and assignment of that ticket number are subject to the administrator. Each ticket must include the name and a contact information of the participants. If you purchase online and would like to request your specific ticket numbers, you may submit a request electronically by email or through our online contact form, and we will attempt to respond to you within a reasonable amount of time. We do not use a digital number system to avoid confusion, given the multiple ways of acquiring the raffle tickets.

No – the winner must either pick up the car in Gallup or arrange shipping.

No – the winner will literally receive the raffled car for the ticket price: $25. V8's for Vocations pays the federal gift tax. The winner must be able to provide a TIN for the reporting to the Internal Revenue Service.

Yes – The Raffle is open to all legal residents of the United States, and participants must be 18 years of age or older and possess a valid driver's license to be eligible to win. Because of the complexity of tax issues with non-U.S. residents, we have updated our terms and conditions and can no longer sell tickets outside of the United States.

We make every effort to ensure that the prize will be ready for pickup or delivery on the day of the raffle. If this is not the case, we will fully disclose all pertinent information to the winner as soon as possible.

The V8s program is a community effort of active and retired professional mechanics and car enthusiasts who have generously agreed to donate their time and efforts toward the restoration.

Fr. Matthew Keller, at the time the vocations director for the Diocese, had the idea to merge his love of classic cars with the duties of overseeing the education of the Gallup seminarians. He calls the new program “V8s for Vocations”.

“The idea was, I’ve always liked cars. I learned how to work on them in high school – I learned how to do autobody for a year,” said Fr. Keller. “I restored my own car after high school and helped my brother-in-law paint several vehicles. So it’s always been an interest of mine, but something I thought I had to give up as a priest.”

Then one day, some parishioners provided Fr. Keller with inspiration.

“Some friends said, ‘you should get a car and get the seminarians to help you fix it up.’ I thought, ‘Wait a minute, that’s a great idea, but let’s use it for a fundraiser.’ And so right away I talked about it with some other friends, and a high school friend of mine said ‘You know what, I’ve got a car for you, I saw it in an ad in Bloomfield at a reasonable price.’”

The car advertised in Bloomfield turned out to be a 1972 Chevelle Super Sport. A donor offered to buy the car, to kickstart the first restoration. While the Chevy needed a lot of work, Fr. Keller enlisted the help of volunteers and seminarians to restore the Chevelle, which was raffled off in a very successful program.

All proceeds from this program are direted by the Foundation to help not only the Diocese of Gallup to pay for the costs associated with educating and forming seminarians to serve as future priests, but we also use monies raised to help us continue to run the program, including marketing and selling tickets, buying, building, and restoring raffle vehicles. 

When available, we also help fund the Seminarian Endowment managed by the Mission Diocese Fund LLC in a partnership between the Catholic Peoples Foundation and Catholic Extension. The proceeds of that endowment are distributed yearly to the Diocese of Gallup to also help cover the costs of Seminarian Education. Contact CPF directly to learn more about how to contribute to that endowment.

V8s for Vocations has been recognized nationally. Hagerty has filmed an interview with Rev. Matthew Keller. Numerous articles and news stories have been published by the Knights of Columbus, Catholic News Agency. Albuquerque Journal, Crux, KRQE News, have all published articles on V8s for Vocations. Some are available for your review on this website.