Lee Mental Health's turtle race offers chance at winning new home

It’s all about turtle timing.

Carried along by the artificial current at a Cape Coral water park, 10,000 replica reptiles will be released Sunday — one of them holding on its belly the ticket to a $3,000 grand prize and a chance to win a new home.

Only a few turtles carry a prize. The rest are rounded up, washed and packed for the next nonprofit promotion, said Heidi Davis, who as co-chairwoman of the Southwest Florida Tropical Turtle Race is familiar with the drill.

The wet run, now in its fourth year, benefits Lee Mental Health Inc. The estimated $40,000 the event is expected to bring in will go toward programs that aid children, including the more than 600 youths annually who are admitted to its in-patient crisis care. Previous races helped to build the Vista Behavioral Crisis Services in south Fort Myers.

Lee Mental Health CEO Jan Eustis said the turtle launch raises awareness as it raises money.

Community involvement is key, she said, enumerating the sponsors of this year’s race, among them the Lee Building Industry Association and First Home Builders of Florida.

The latter could donate a new house to the winner of the race, if that person is lucky enough to have a registration number that matches one of three that are chosen before the race.

Photo by Jeremy Lyverse, Daily News

Heidi Davis, the Southwest Florida Tropical Turtle Race director, tags and labels some of the 100 sponsored turtles at Signs Now in Fort Myers on Thursday afternoon. Ten thousand turtles will float through the Sun Splash Family Waterpark in Cape Coral on Sunday with cash and, possibly, a house going to the winners.

An outside promotions company that helps conduct similar races around the country picks the digits. The digits are within a range that appear on turtle “adoption papers,” which are filled out every time fundraisers sell a chance to win.

Other prize packages include weekend getaways and pizza for a year. Victory won’t go exclusively to the fastest turtle, though. The last to finish the race will net its owner a one-year gym membership.

Each turtle, or chance to win, is $5. Adopters don’t get to keep the toys, Davis said, as hard as it is to let the tiny turtles go. A “corporate turtle package” that allows small businesses to support the cause goes for $250 and puts its ticket holders in the running for office pizza parties and other treats.

Adoptions will go on until all the turtles are accounted for, Davis said.

Most are sold in the three days leading up to the race, she added.

So what does it take to put together this kind of fundraiser?

“One hundred and forty volunteers, 10,000 turtles, 25 sponsors, 75 corporate turtles and a good sense of humor,” said event co-chairwoman Toni Matison.

The corporate turtles and the mass of 10,000 won’t all go into the drink at the same time, but in both cases the winning toys are chosen the same way. Matison said those at the head of the pack will be winnowed into a tube so the leaders can pop out one by one.

Race organizers will call a special hotline Sunday to find out if the first turtle out has the winning number for the house, Matison said. Either way, that turtle will be the ticket to $3,000, she added.

Lots of people are looking for a chance to win.

Last year the promotion netted more than $30,000, she said.

Though the race lasts just a few minutes, the awareness it generates goes on for weeks.

“Beyond the fundraising it really opens up a lot of doors in getting a lot of people to talk about mental health and what the money is for,” Matison said. People will start talking and that’s a huge part of the six-week awareness. If we didn’t have the turtle race, I don’t know if we would even be able to do that.”

Southwest Florida Tropical Turtle Race

To adopt a turtle visit www.turtlerace.com, or visit any Lee County Colonial Bank branch, First Home Builders Super Model Center or Sun Splash Family Waterpark.

The race begins at 6:30 p.m. Sunday at the water park, 400 Santa Barbara Boulevard in Cape Coral.

Entrance to the park is free after 6 p.m. to watch the race. Swimmers can be admitted at half-price after 3 p.m.