Raffle

Your financial support is essential to our work, and deeply appreciated. Our monthly raffle is one way that we generate funds to support educational programming, care and conservation of our collections, facility upkeep and improvements, and essential administrative tasks.

Congratulations on winning the February raffle, Meredith Safford!

Guided Fossil Trip and NHSM Lifetime Membership

About Our Prize

Guided Fossil Trip and NHSM Lifetime Membership

This month we are raffling a personalized one-day guided fossil trip (presume one family/one car) to a restricted-access beach in Calvert County, Maryland. This site is known for an abundance of Miocene Calvert Formation fossils, in particular a large variety of teeth and shells. Large Otodus (Carcharodon/Carcharocles) megalodon teeth (megs) have been found at this site, along with fossils and teeth from whales, dolphins, rays and many kinds of sharks.   

We will provide directions and meet you at the site. Parking space is limited and restricted on this private property, hence the one car limit.

The trip will take place on a mutually agreed upon 2025 day when all parties are available and when the tides are low and hopefully the weather cooperates. Must be used before November 30, 2025.

You can keep what you find, and we promise a unique fun and educational experience. As a bonus, we will probably see Osprey and maybe a Bald Eagle. No extra charge!

PLUS

With a Lifetime Membership to NHSM (value $1000), you will receive discounts on many of our programs—from lectures, workshops, and courses offered in our museum, to canoe trips, nature walks, and fossil hunts in the great outdoors.

Get to know your guides:

Adrien Malick is the Curator of the Fossil Collection at the NHSM and is a board member.   Adrien enjoys interacting with, learning from and relying on the expertise of his fellow NHSM Fossil Club members and the entire crowd of people who make the NHSM the place that it is.   Adrien tries to pull together ideas and ways to augment and use the collection to reach a wide audience of kids of all ages and professions.

Adrien has a Ph.D. in Immunology, patents focused on Immunoassays, an understanding wife and 4 kids, a fossil collection, and a passion for putting fossils into kids hands and watching the magic happen.

Nick Spero is an NHSM board member and long-time volunteer. With a professional life devoted to insects and a passion for everything outdoors, Nick might be your guide as you search for mushrooms; taste sauteed daylilies; twist plant fibers into rope; build a fire; touch frog eggs; or identify wild edibles from a canoe.

“Nature has been my salvation so many times in my life. It makes me who I am. Now I enjoy sharing that love with others. To show someone something that initially scares them—like a Hickory Horned Devil [moth larva]—and then have them end up being intrigued and enthralled with it. That’s magic.”

Nick first fell in love with the Natural History Society of Maryland because he was fascinated with the collections and the talks by experts. “It’s great to be surrounded by a group of like-minded people who love nature and want to get others involved.

Raffle Information and Rules

1.    Support us by purchasing a ticket.

2.    For every $5 ticket you buy your name will be entered once (i.e. $5=1 entry, $10=2 entries, etc.)

3.    Cut-off date to be entered is March 31, 2025 at noon.

4.    The winner will be chosen at random and announced on the NHSM website and social media on APRIL 1, 2025. The winner will also be notified via email.

5.    The prize is for specified items only. No substitutions.

6.    NHSM officers, directors and employees are ineligible to enter the Raffle. Immediate family members of NHSM employees (defined as: spouse, siblings, parents, children) are also not eligible to enter or win. Any entry from an ineligible person is void.

7.   Raffle ticket purchases do not qualify as tax deductible contributions, per IRS Publication 526.

8.    Lifetime Membership goes to one person and that person must be 18 years of age or older.  Lifetime Membership is non-transferable. It will only be awarded to the person who purchased the ticket. Lifetime Membership allows the member to receive discounts on programs for him/herself, a significant other, and children under the age of 18 living in the same household.

*If you win a NHSM raffle more than once, you will only receive one Lifetime membership.

Our past winners were: