Feature Article December 18, 2003
LAND O' LAKES NewsWeb HomeContact Us
Cecily Matacheskie -the smiling ticket seller
Chances are if you have bought a raffle ticket for a community organization in Northbrook over the past six years, you have met Cecily Matacheskie.
Cecilys
ticket selling career began when she was asked by Leona Neal to sell
tickets for the Golden Sunset Club. She gave me six books of
tickets, and I told her didnt know how to sell tickets, but then I
sold them all, Cecily recalls, adding since then Ive gone on
to sell tickets for the Pioneer Museum, the Lions, the Pine Meadow
home - whoever needs tickets sold. I think its important to smile at
people, whether they buy a ticket or not, and thats what I do.
The front of the Northbrook IGA is one of Cecilys favourite spots for selling, and she sometimes has two or three different kinds of tickets on sale at a time for different groups. She sells tickets for four or five hours about three days a week, and generally raises about $200 per day for local groups. She keeps strict counts on what she has sold, so every penny gets where it is supposed to go.
It just makes me feel great to hand over money to these organisations that do so much good in the community, she said. Her efforts do not go unnoticed, as many of her friends and neighbours have come forward to express their appreciation for her efforts.
What Cecily Matacheskie accomplishes these days is all the more remarkable when her difficult past is taken into account.
Cecily, who was born in the Northbrook area, suffered a terrible car accident 37 years ago this January. She lost her husband in the accident and was so badly injured she was not expected to live, much less walk, as she was paralysed from the neck down. Her two young children were thankfully uninjured in the accident and lived with her husbands parents until Cecily, having made a remarkable recovery, was released from hospital. Cecily did regain her ability to walk
She lived with her children and her mother at her mothers house in Northbrook for about a year before striking out on her own to Madoc, where she raised her two children into adulthood. Eighteen years later, her children having moved out, Cecily moved back to Northbrook. She now lives in Pine Grove Seniors apartments. Both of Cecilys children have settled in Belleville and she has 5 grandchildren.
