Goal! Family wins SMART’s Football Raffle to travel to U.S.A.

Not only are kids feeling the joy of a free donation, an Orange Walk resident is about to scream for gold. Sixty-seven year old Romaldo Lambey, a resident of Orange Walk Town, along with his wife, daughter and son-in-law, will be enjoying the much anticipated face-off between Belize and the United States during the upcoming Gold Cup competition.  Lambey is the lucky winner of a joint promotion, spearheaded by Smart and United Airlines, which offers subscribers an opportunity to experience the football match in person.  The group will be flying out to Portland, Oregon on July eighth on an all expense paid trip.  Aside from airfare and accommodations, Lambey received a check for two thousand Belize dollars which he will use for additional expenses during the three-day vacation.  According to the retired player, he got involved in the raffle when he asked his daughter to send a text that entered his name into the competition.

Romaldo Lambey, Smart Raffle Winner

Romaldo Lambey

“I normally put on the information channel that gives all the rest of information and so forth and since I love football and I normally watch football on Saturday. So I get a point to the date once again. And I told my daughter, I can’t handle the cell phone too good so might as well you fix this stuff for me. And she did that night. I didn’t ask her how many texst she put and this was the end result of it. When they called me on Friday evening about three-forty-one, I saw the number and it is a strange number so I said who is calling. So I called back the number and that’s when the young lady tell me I done win the Gold Cup trip. So I asked her, true? And she said yes. Just make sure you come here Monday at two o’clock and bring three persons along with you. She asked me if I have any visa? And I told her yes, I have a visa. I was still frightened anyway wondering if it is true. Till when I came this morning, the person called me while I was on my way coming to Belize City. So then I started convincing myself, oh yes it must be me.”

Ian Courtenay

Ian Courtenay, Public Relations Manager, Smart

“Our raffle started a couple months ago and it was to text in to UWIN. It was fifty cents per text and it would enter you into the raffle. We had over twenty-five thousand entries I believe. And on Friday which was the close of the raffle, we selected it under the supervision of the auditing firm for the raffle, Baker Tilly Hulse. All our raffles are electronic as usual; random selection so luckily Mister Lambey was the winner and he has his visa so he can luckily go on the trip.”

Alfonso Young, United Airlines Representative

Alfonso Young

“As you know, this is the first time the Belizean team is being able to participate in the Gold Cup Game being held in the U.S.A.  We are a company that has been in Belize for over twenty-five years and we very much wanted to be a part of it. So we decided to team up with SMART to give four luckily Belizeans the opportunity to experience the game firsthand and from not behind their TV screens. So what we did, we selected one winner and he gets the opportunity to take along three of his family and friends, as well.”

From their seat in the bleachers, the delegation will also get a chance to view the preliminary match-up featuring Costa Rica.