You could be the proud new owner of the Chris Carpenter bobblehead pictured above! All you have to do is support a worthy charitable cause!

Background

May 3 is Give Ozarks Day. During that day, not-for-profits from around the Ozarks will work to fundraise as much as they can. Among those is the Ozarks Literacy Council (OLC). The Community Foundation of the Ozarks is the organizer of the day and has special times throughout the 24-hour period that organizations can earn monetary prizes. This is where the bobblehead raffle comes in.

How To Win

If you donate at the the Give Ozarks page on Tuesday, May 3 between the hours of 12:00 Midnight-1:00 a.m., CST and/or 6:00 p.m.-7:00 p.m. CST and then send me proof of your donation (the donation receipt may not have the donation time on it, but you can send me the timestamp of the e-mail you receive after donating) at either of those time periods to my e-mail (beardpunkbaseball@gmail.com), you will receive an entry to the drawing for the handsome and angry bobblehead. After all entries are received, I will randomly pick one entry. I'll notify that person and get their mailing address to mail the bobblehead free of charge. A few things to note:

Those time periods are Central time. Therefore, if you are in Eastern time, it's 1:00 a.m.-2:00 a.m. and 7:00 p.m.-8:00 p.m. If you're on the West Coast, the times are 10:00 p.m.-11:00 p.m. (on May 2!) and 4:00 p.m.-5:00 p.m. Only entries from the correct hours will be eligible for the bobblehead.

If you donate during both time periods, you will receive two entries for the bobblehead.

time periods, you will receive for the bobblehead. The minimum donation is $5, but I highly encourage you to donate more if you can.

The OLC does important work in the community and runs on a tight budget. There's only one full time employee and one part time employee. Together, they coordinate dozens of volunteers and learners for success. To give you some perspective on people that cannot read, check out this story about Spanish translators in baseball. Carlos Beltran's story about waiting to see what other people would order at a food court, then pointing to it is nearly exactly the kind of thing people that can't read have to do. Other difficulties illiterate people face include not being able to read their medicine bottles. They try to remember what their doctor told them, but the older they get, they tend to get more pills and their memory gets less sharp.

About the Chris Carpenter Bobblehead

This was a Busch Stadium giveaway on Aug. 22, 2010. It says "2009 Comeback Player of the Year" on the box, which this prize includes. I'm not sure on the Antiques Roadshow value, but on E-bay, these are going anywhere from $43 to $80.

And if you don't want the bobblehead, but would still like to donate, you are free to do so at anytime throughout the day, but the times I specified would help out greatly.

Here's the donation link again: https://giveozarks.org/2016/ozarks-literacy-council

This is intended to be fun. I will do my best to see that everyone that wants to participate gets a fair chance. If you have any questions, post them in the comments and I'll do my best to answer them/may update this post, if necessary.

Good luck! Tell your friends! And most of all, thank you so much.