Doug Calderone has built another giant chair which now sits outside Dr Laura Nowacki’s office at 10 Queen Street. The chair will be raffled off as part of a fundraising effort.

Mr Calderone, of Newtown, built a similar chair with a purpose in September. Set up on the opposite corner on Queen Street, in front of My Place Restaurant, the equally oversize chair was raffled to raise funds for Reach Newtown.

Tickets for the new chair will be on sale on Friday, March 27, from 5:30 to 8 pm, at Reed Intermediate School, 3 Trades Lane. Those are the same hours that Sandy Hook 5K participants will be picking up their race packets for the Third Annual Sandy Hook 5K, taking place Saturday morning. 

Tickets are $10 each. The drawing will be on March 28 around 9 am, prior to the 5K, which will host 1,500 runners at Fairfield Hills. A staggered kids’ fun run for 250 children will begin at 8:15, and then the 5K will start at 9.

The Newtown Memorial Fund has offered to collect and process all donations from Saturday’s race. Partial proceeds will be donated to The Collaborative Recovery Fund, administered by the Newtown-Sandy Hook Community Foundation and which pays the out of pocket mental health expenses for those eligible who have been most impacted by 12/14. A percent of the proceeds will also go directly to the chosen nonprofit organizations of the 26 families who lost loved ones.

Ticket sales for Mr Calderone’s large chair will be added to the funds raised through race fees, donations in honor of runners, and other fundraising efforts.