PERU — A benefit for resident Bill Freeman will be held at 6 p.m. May 3 at the former Peru Elementary School to help raise money for an upcoming surgery.

According to family friend Yvonne Allen, she and friend Sandee Wing came up with the idea for a benefit after Freeman had to undergo major surgery for an unexpected medical issue.

“He’s already expected to be out of work for several months, and he just found out he’ll need to have another surgery in two or three months,” Allen said. “Between all the trips back and forth to the doctors and the surgeries, we figured that this would be a fun way to help out his family.”

The benefit will include games of bingo, where the winners will receive either a gift certificate to various businesses or items donated by friends and family. Allen said  there are only 100 tickets for the bingo game. They will cost $10.

“We have very limited seating for the bingo portion of the benefit,” Allen said, “but we still encourage people to show up and check out our raffle items and the food court we’re setting up.”

The items being raffled range from hand-knitted crafts and sea-glass jewelry to a hand-made bookcase and cords of firewood. Allen said they plan to continue the raffle drawings after the benefit ends, depending on the number of items donated by the public.

“We’ve got a lot of high-end items being donated, including a bookcase made by Bill’s brother-in-law and a hand-crafted table,” Allen said. “Clay Pelletier of Rumford even offered to do excavation work for someone as one of the prizes being raffled off. We figure that as long as offers are coming in for the raffle, we’ll continue to raffle them off. Anything we can do to raise money will help.”

Allen added that food will be available to buy or win during the raffle drawings.

“We’ve got a whole lot of homemade pies being donated,” Allen said. “People can buy plates of food too. It should be a fun time. We tried doing something non-typical for the benefit, between the food court and the bingo games.”

An account will be set up at Franklin Savings Bank under the name “Billy’s Team” for people who wish to donate to Freeman, Allen said.

“We figured since there’s a limited amount of tickets, this provides a way for people to help donate if they can’t make it,” Allen said. “It’s available at any Franklin Savings bank in the area.”

To purchase tickets, call Allen at 462-3100. To donate items for the benefit, call Wing at 357-2873.

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