The funds raised through the raffle will go towards two $500 scholarships to be awarded to part-time students, one on each campus. The scholarships are part of the Bob Erickson Part-time Student Scholarship program.

Erickson himself will select the winning raffle tickets when he arrives on each campus on August 22, the first day of his fourth annual Scholarship Challenge bike tour.

For the past three years, Erickson, a member of the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities Foundation board, has brought awareness to the financial needs of part-time students by bicycling to each of the 53 campuses comprising the state system. His trek will take him more than 2,000 miles in a one-month period. His goal is to raise money and build public support for making more financial aid available to Minnesota's part-time college students, many of whom balance college with family and full-time work.

“The challenges for students are growing,” Erickson said during his bike tour last year. “Tuition continues to go up. Many, many people are being denied a chance to better themselves.”

A Trek 820 mountain bike valued at $229 has been donated by Ramsey Bicycle of Ramsey, Minn. for the winning raffle ticket holder on the Coon Rapids Campus. A Triax Blade bicycle valued at $160 has been donated by Target of Cambridge, Minn. for the winner on the Cambridge Campus.

Raffle tickets for the scholarship fund-raisers can be purchased for $1 at the Information Center on each campus. A second-place prize in the Cambridge drawing will include four tickets to the Cambridge Community College Foundation’s Winter Dinner Fund-raiser. The second-place and third-place prizes in the Coon Rapids drawing will include two tickets to the Coon Rapids Foundation’s popular fall event, the Prairie Home Delights dinner and silent auction.

For more information about Cambridge Campus Foundation’s fund-raising efforts, contact Lynnette Brambrink at 763-422-3436. For information about the Coon Rapids Foundation’s find-raising efforts, contact Lisa Sisson at 763-422-3329.