The HUB youth hangout raised $4,000 from its recent raffle ticket sale. At stake was $800 worth of gardening supplies like tools, seed and bird  feeders, all donated by South Whidbey hardware stores and garden nurseries. The funds will help the HUB, which had an average of 25 kids coming to play pool, table tennis and video games, toward its goal of operating five days per week next year.

On June 6, a HUB kid drew the winning raffle ticket for Linda Heintz. Frankie Petitclerc said they knew Heintz worked nearby at the Whidbey Island Bank, so about 20 kids carried all the gardening supplies to the bank to inform Heintz she won the raffle.

“We just showed up and surprised her. It was fun,” Petitclerc said.

The HUB sold the tickets at markets on the South End, as well as at both the Mukilteo and Clinton ferry terminals.

After 22 years as part of the South Whidbey Youth Connection, a now-defunct nonprofit, the HUB closed in 2011. Government funding was withdrawn and the program had to shut down. A group of adults, including the former program advisors Petitclerc and Erick Westphal, Langley City Councilman Bruce Allen and Langley Police Chief Randy Heston, determined they would reopen the after-school hangout in the basement of Langley United Methodist Church.

The HUB was able to open two days per week in April, and will remain open until June 15. It resumes next school year in September.