The passenger ferry was spotted in Ocracoke’s Silver Lake Harbor on Thursday doing a test run. Photo by Randal Mathews
From our news services
The passenger ferry between Hatteras and Ocracoke will begin service on Monday (June 21) and the reservation system is now operational, the N.C. Department of Transportation announced today.
The Ocracoke Express passenger ferry, which will start its third season of operation June 21, shuttles passengers directly between the Hatteras Terminal and Ocracoke Village. The crossing time is approximately 65 minutes.
This year’s schedule includes daily departures at the following times: From Hatteras: 9:30 a.m., 1 p.m., 4:30 p.m. From Ocracoke: 11 a.m., 3 p.m., 8 p.m.
The fare is $5 each way, with an additional $1 charge for bicycles. Children 3 and under can ride for free.
Reservations can be made online at www.ncferry.org, or by calling 1-800-BY-FERRY.
As a bonus this year, riders who inquire at the terminal or make a reservation by phone (1-800-BY-FERRY) can buy one ticket and get one free, until the end of June.
The North Carolina Ferry System will adhere to all state and federal COVID-19 guidelines. Currently, the Transportation Security Administration requires all passengers inside terminals and passenger lounges to wear face coverings, regardless of vaccination status.
Earlier this month, the N.C. Legislature appropriated $700,000 for leasing a rental passenger ferry until Aug. 15. Gov. Roy Cooper approved the bill for this funding on June 14
Jamie Kritzer, assistant director of communications for the NCDOT, said in an email that he could not speak for the Legislature as to this modification from the original appropriation request of $943,000 and operating the ferry until Sept. 10.
For details of the circuitous path this appropriation request took, see stories here and here.
As for the ferry being built in Hubert, the company has the boat in the water for testing, Kritzer said.
“That’s part of the process the builder goes through before turning it over to the Ferry Division,” he said. “Until that happens we won’t know when it will be ready for service.”
The Ocracoke community will celebrate the summer’s fig bounty at the Fig Festival Aug. 5 to 7 with special guest chef and NC public TV personality Vivian Howard.
The 8th annual Ocracoke Fig Festival will take place at the Berkley Barn and on the grounds of the Ocracoke Preservation Society Museum.
The three-day festival, which is produced by the Ocracoke Preservation Society, features live music, storytelling, children’s activities and crafts, talks by local fig experts, and vendor booths offering fig preserves, fig cakes, fig trees, local cookbooks and other “fig-tastic items.”
Mask-wearing will be required, and social distancing measures will be in place to mitigate the risks of COVID-19.
Howard, star of the PBS shows, “A Chef’s Life” and “Somewhere South,” will be the festival’s special guest at the Savory Side of Figs Dinner on Thursday, Aug. 5. This popular event will feature savory fig dishes from local chefs and restaurants as well as Howard.
“I’ve fallen in love with Ocracoke in recent years,” Howard said. “After the double whammy of Hurricane Dorian and the pandemic, I’m happy to encourage tourism to the island and do a little touring myself by participating in this year’s Ocracoke Fig Festival.”
Tickets for the dinner will be available through the OPS Museum gift shop beginning July 1.
Other events with Howard include a book signing on Friday, Aug. 6, and a public Q&A on Saturday, Aug. 7.
Howard also will serve as a guest judge at the Fig Cake Bake-Off, the showpiece of the fig festival on Saturday afternoon. All are welcome to submit a cake in one or both categories: Traditional and Innovative.
The Traditional category is limited to the old-fashioned recipe, available in local cookbooks. Even using the same recipe, there are differences: the type of fig preserves used, the balance of spices or the cook’s magic touch.
In the Innovative category, anything goes as long as there are figs in it.
The Fig Festival logo is a drawing by Manda Holda
There also is a Youth category for ages 15 and younger. Howard will award the bake-off prizes and welcome the evening’s entertainment: Ocracoke’s favorite 80s cover band, Raygun Ruby.
During the week of the fig festival, island restaurants will offer fig-infused menu items, both savory and sweet.
Local shops will stock this year’s selection of fig preserves.
The passenger ferry ‘Ocracoke Express’ awaits travelers in Silver Lake Harbor last year. Photo: C. Leinbach
To catch up on Ocracoke news and much more, click here
From our news sources
Gov. Roy Cooper today signed into law the bill that appropriates funding for a rental passenger ferry between Hatteras and Ocracoke this season.
Cooper’s office sent the press release on Senate Bill 241 Modified Utility Vehicle Def/Use of Funds late this afternoon. Ferry funding is an amendment to this bill that regulates all-terrain vehicles.
This legislation includes funding of $700,000 until Aug. 15.
Flowers and lilies like these at Island Artworks are in bloom all over Ocracoke. Photo: C. Leinbach
To catch up on Ocracoke news and much more, click here
The Cape Hatteras National Seashore is looking for volunteers to help park rangers staff the Ocracoke Visitor Center when it reopens in the coming weeks. As part of the interpretation and education team, volunteers will help greet visitors, orient them to the island and provide educational information to visitors of all ages.Apply now. See NPS programs below.
Tuesday, June 15 Ocracoke Waterways Commission, 6 pm, Ocracoke Community Center. The meeting will be open to the public with masks as required by NC State. The meeting will also be broadcast via Facebook at Hyde County Public Information. Canceled due to rain — Coyote Music Den, 13 Cabana Dr.: Coyote Backyard Concert, 8 pm. All concerts sliding scale/pay what you can; tips welcome at www.paypal.me/coyotemusicden or donate/more info at www.coyotemusic.net. A portion of proceeds benefit the Charlotte Nemesia Castro scholarship fund at Ocracoke School.
Wednesday, June 16 Coyote Music Den, 13 Cabana Dr.: Coyote + Martin Garrish Backyard Concert, 8 pm. All concerts sliding scale/pay what you can; tips welcome at www.paypal.me/coyotemusicden or donate/more info at www.coyotemusic.net. A portion of proceeds benefit the Charlotte Nemesia Castro scholarship fund at Ocracoke School. DAJIO: Barefoot Wade, 7 to 10 pm
Thursday, June 17 Donald Davis storytelling workshop public performances, Ocracoke Preservation Museum, 10:30 to 11:30 am. Some seating available. The Hyde County manager’s office will seek islanders’ input onadding the Ocracoke Lighthouse to existing tram service at a meeting from 4 to 5:30 p.m. in the Ocracoke Community Center. See story here. DAJIO: Raygun Ruby, 7 to 10 pm
Friday, June 18 Ocracoke Tourism Development Authority, 9 am, virtually on Facebook at Hyde County Public Information. See agenda below. COVID-19 vaccination clinic, 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Ocracoke Community Center. See notice here. DAJIO: Ray McAllister Band, 7 to 9 pm The Breeze: Remedy, 9 pm
Saturday, June 19 Donald Davis storytelling workshop public performances, Books to Be Red stage, 11 am to 12:15 pm. BYO seating. DAJIO: Kate McNally, 7 to 10 pm
National Park Service talks on Ocracoke
The NPS Visitor Center. Photo: C. Leinbach
The National Park Service Ocracoke Island interpretive programs on Ocracoke have begun with the following scheduled. Unless otherwise stated, these programs are outside the NPS Visitor Center at Pilot Town Road by the south end ferry docks.
Stories of Ocracoke Island Monday to Friday from 11 to 11:30 a.m. Learn about the location and legacy of Ocracoke Island. From serving as an early port village and primary point of entry to North Carolina to Blackbeard’s final battle, Ocracoke Island possesses a unique heritage resulting from its continued remote setting.
Shaping these barrier islands: Monday to Friday from 2 to 2:30 p.m. Wars, hurricanes, winds and ocean currents have all had impacts on the shores of Cape Hatteras.
War Comes to Ocracoke Every Monday, Wednesday and Thursday from 4 to 4:30 p.m. Learn about the role Ocracoke Island and the Outer Banks have played in shaping our country’s conflicts.
Ocracoke Island Lighthouse Tuesday to Friday 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Visit the lighthouse and discuss the details and history of this beautiful beacon. The base of the lighthouse will be staffed and open on dates and times listed above from June 2 through Aug. 13.
Banker Ponies Every Monday, Tuesday and Thursday from 10 to 10:45 a.m. at the Pony Pen. Come meet the ponies who once roamed as a wild herd and learn about their living history on Ocracoke Island.
Explore the Shore Every Wednesday from 9 to 9:45 a.m. Meet outside at the beach access parking area adjacent to the Ocracoke Campground. Take an easy beach walk with a ranger and learn about what calls the beach its home.
Pat Garber’s shining palace, Marsh Haven. Photo: C. Leinbach
By Connie Leinbach
In Pat Garber’s latest book, the reader will get a glimpse of two Ocracokes—the one since Hurricane Dorian hit in September 2019 and Ocracoke of 37 years ago.
Garber this year sold her beloved home Marsh Haven and has left Ocracoke, although she said she does plan to visit each year.
It’s the island’s loss of a writer who for all these years has captured Ocracoke’s singularity in numerous books and articles with her lovely prose.
This book, “My Shining Palace: A love song to Ocracoke Island, 1984 and 2019,” is available at Books to Be Red and other island locales.
It reveals an Ocracoke of yesteryear and a somber look at Ocracoke since Dorian–a storm that, “in less than an hour, changed everything: the landscape, the village, the lives of all who called it home,” she writes.
The book is not long. It is sprinkled with her charming drawings, a few photographs and provides a delightful way to spend a few hours in her company, listening to her tales of a bygone Ocracoke and her post-Dorian travails of trying to put her “shining palace” back together again.
Garber’s writing is lively and insightful, and those who like to read all they can about this island on the edge of North Carolina will revel in these tales.
One Garber fan, Harry Lineback of Chula Vista, Calif., said, “I couldn’t put it down; I didn’t want it to end.”
Garber’s storm-related reflections parallel the year she relocated to Ocracoke. That was 1984, and though she found her home, her “shining palace” here, it was a time when she had very little money or possessions.
She sketches a history of the island as she discovers it.
“All of Ocracoke was new to me then, a gift being unwrapped slowly, layer-by-layer and day-by-day,” she writes.
It was a seminal year.
“That year danced like sea foam, iridescent and ephemeral, along with waves of my destiny,” she writes. “The years I have spent here since then, much as I cherish them, seem languid and pale in comparison.”
She learned that “living on an island was like no other living,” and chronicles her various adventures: working as a server, motel maid, meeting locals and men, riding a bicycle everywhere; discovering the myriad wildlife and natural rhythms of an untouched island.
The island lends itself to going barefoot, something Garber has enjoyed doing all her life while growing up in Virginia and later in Europe. That first year she discovered “Ocra-toe,” achieved through frequent stubbing of the big toe.
During this year, she found a small shack to rent in which had a spectral visitor that she chronicles in the chapter “Ghost,” which was excerpted in the May issue of the Observer.
She fed herself by learning to catch crabs, oysters, clams, and from a job at Murray’s Fish House heading shrimp and where the workers got to take home pieces of broken shrimp.
“I never ate better in my life than I did that year on Ocracoke!” she writes.
Vignettes abound of colorful locals for whom she worked or was friends, trips to Portsmouth and Beacon islands, rescuing wildlife, such as “Mulligan The Pelican.”
After that year, Garber got a job teaching on the most isolated Indian reservation in the continental United Sates—with the Havasupai, located at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. It was a journey to another isolated spot.
This is where her book ends followed with a closing chapter reflecting on a year after Dorian struck.
Pat Garber at a book signing in 2019. Photo: C. Leinbach
The light blue line shows the proposed addition to the free tram service on Ocracoke.
The Hyde County manager’s office will seek islanders’ input on adding the Ocracoke Lighthouse to existing tram service at a meeting from 4 to 5:30 p.m. on Thursday (June 17) in the Ocracoke Community Center.
In this proposal, the tram would turn onto Lighthouse Road; pull over and stop at the lighthouse, turn left onto Martha Jane Lane, left onto Loop Road and then rejoin the existing route on Irvin Garrish Highway.
The goals of the addition of this lighthouse tram stop are to:
● Provide quality visitor access to the lighthouse.
● Decrease traffic congestion, the number of carts/cars on Lighthouse Road.
● Minimize the parking conflicts at the lighthouse and provide another option for access.
The public can also submit comments on adding this proposal by emailing tramroute@hydecountync.gov or you can leave a voice recording to be considered as public comment by dialing 252-926-5288.
The comment period is open until Friday, June 18.
Additional information regarding this proposal:
● The NPS estimates approximately 100 people per hour visit the lighthouse between the hours of 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. and 500 to 1,000 people visit per day during the season.
● The NPS estimates that approximately 2.5 people travel per vehicle, amounting to 400 cars/carts coming to the lighthouse each day.
● It is estimated that tram service to the lighthouse could eliminate a substantial number of those vehicles traveling to the lighthouse.
● The pick-up and drop off location will not decrease the number of spaces currently available for parking.
● Staff and volunteers will keep the base of the lighthouse open 7 days a week, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., with programs at the open base of the lighthouse for each new group of visitors that arrive.
● NPS staff will ride the passenger ferry each day it is made available and provide a program about Ocracoke Island.
Visitors to Ocracoke may soon have the option again to take the passenger ferry from Hatteras Island. Photo: Peter Vankevich
By Connie Leinbach
Ocracoke got a step closer to the return of the passenger ferry this summer when the N.C. Senate today passed a bill that includes funding for this service between Hatteras and Ocracoke.
Although a start date has not been set, the breakthrough came today when the Senate passed Bill No. 241 — a bill to regulate all-terrain vehicles but which includes an amendment for $700,000 to fund passenger ferry service to Ocracoke.
The bill is on its way to Gov. Roy Cooper, according to Hyde County Manager Kris Cahoon Noble., but she did not know when he would sign it.
“I could not be happier,” Noble said Thursday afternoon.
Once Cooper signs it, it will become law, but the wheels to get the service here are already in motion.
Ferry Division Spokesman Tim Hass said in an email that the division will lease the same boat that’s been used for the last two seasons.
That would be the “Martha’s Vineyard,” a catamaran-style walk-on boat that was dubbed the (substitute) “Ocracoke Express.”
“It’s ready and waiting for us up north,” he said. “(When) the bill becomes law, we will have to officially sign the contract and get the boat down here.”
Once the boat is here, he added, the route it will take to Ocracoke will have to undergo a route verification and the Coast Guard will have to do “new to zone” inspections.
The Coast Guard requires “new to zone” any time a passenger vessel leaves one jurisdiction and operates in another.
“We have been having weekly planning meetings all spring,” Hass said. “So once all the inspections are in place, we should be ready to begin service.”
Service for the walk-on ferry was set to begin May 25 with a rental boat and continue until Sept. 9, but until today, two recent efforts to secure funding met resistance in the General Assembly’s state Senate.
Bobby Hanig
In the first bill, House Bill 165 dealing with NCDOT highway funds, included an amendment for passenger ferry funding of $943,000, $362,000 for coastal dredging and $62,000 to repay Carteret County for their help last fall with dredging. That bill was sent to the Senate rules committee on May 10 and there it remains.
A second bill, to regulate all-terrain vehicles, was generated in the Senate (S241) and sent to the House, which passed it and added an amendment to fund only the passenger ferry.
But the Senate did not concur with this bill on June 1 and a conference committee — to hammer out differences — was created on June 2.
This committee met on Wednesday and approved a version that lowered the appropriation amount to $700,000 and for the rental lease to end by Aug. 15.
The approved version also added new requirements for the Ferry Division to exercise the opt-out clause of the lease when it determines the state-owned boat for passenger service can be operationalized within 30 days if the cost of opting out is less than the cost of completing the lease term.
This refers to the building of the original “Ocracoke Express” in 2017 when the NCDOT awarded a $4.15 million contract to the former Armstrong Marine Inc. near Swansboro to build a catamaran-style walk-on ferry.
For a variety of reasons, completion and approval were delayed causing the Ferry Division to lease a boat for the last two years. A new company, Waterline, has completed the boat and it is “currently in the water and undergoing trials,” Hass said.
Noble credited Rep. Bobby Hanig (R-Currituck) with shepherding these amendments for passenger ferry funding.
Senate Bill 241 also requires any remaining funds at the lease’s expiration or termination to be deposited in the Ferry Division statewide reserve account.
In today’s Senate action, the bill passed 47-0 without any discussion.
By Kip Tabb With the first meeting of the NC12 Task Force held on May 19, the initial steps toward developing a long-range plan to address concerns about the often-perilous state of NC12 south of Oregon Inlet were taken.
“The board, the Park Service and the community and NCDOT…understand that we have problems with NC 12, and most of our problems occur, south of Oregon [Inlet] and…on Ocracoke Island,” said Dare County Manager and Task Force Member Bobby Outten in an interview with the Voice. “The road closes when we have storms [and] there are hot spots that everybody knows about…that are the next place where we’re going to have issues when the wind and the storms come from a certain direction.”
The task force, chaired by Bob Woodard, chairman of the Dare County Commissioners, includes Outten; Hyde County Commissioner for Ocracoke Randal Mathews; Hyde County Manager Kris Cahoon Noble, as well as representatives from NCDOT, US Fish & Wildlife, the National Park Service and Cape Hatteras Electric Co-op.
For his part, Woodard stressed that the task force will focus on planning and how areas of concern about NC 12 on Hatteras and Ocracoke Islands can be addressed over an extended period of time.
Bob Woodard, Chairman of the Dare County Commissioners
“One of the things I want to accomplish with this task force is a long-term plan,” Woodard said. And while he added that the goal of the task force is to create a plan that would be a catalyst for action, the task force itself is not going to get involved in those projects.
The opening meeting of the task force focused on creating a subcommittee, chaired by Outten, to examine how to move forward.
The makeup of the subcommittee will include representatives from the Southern Environmental Law Center, NC Division of Coastal Management (CAMA), the NC Wildlife Resources Commission, the US Corps of Engineers and a number of other state and federal agencies. Within the task force committee, Sterling Baker, NCDOT, Division 1 Engineer, will address highway and ferry issues.
The subcommittee represents a diverse range of groups and organizations, organizations that are often seen as at odds with one another over the best way to address transportation concerns on the Outer Banks, something Outten acknowledges.
NC 12 Hot Spot on Ocracoke Island. Photo by Peter Vankevich
“We’ve got to deal with the issues that people look at this differently than we might,” he said. “You may as well have the conversation in the beginning and understand what your issues are so that you can address them, and then hopefully you can come to consensus and resolve the problem.”
With the first subcommittee meeting scheduled on June 16, Outten outlined a short lifespan for the NC 12 Task Force.
“I believe what has to come back in the next [task force] meeting is getting their comments, hearing their concerns, hearing their issues,” he said. “Then the third meeting, set the priorities. I don’t see this going on for a year. Three meetings or four meetings should be enough to accomplish our goal.”
Update/correction: The House today (June 9) passed S241 (described below) and it is on the Senate calendar Thursday morning at 10 a.m. The original post of this story said that this session of the N.C. Legislature ends July 2, but there is no statutory or constitutional requirement for when a convened session must end.
By Connie Leinbach
Passenger ferry service between Hatteras and Ocracoke this summer is still unknown as the N.C. Legislature has put off funding a rental boat.
The most recent of two efforts shepherded by Rep. Bobby Hanig (R-Currituck) found Senate Bill 241 back in committee last week.
It is unclear what happens next.
Service for the walk-on ferry was set to begin May 25 with a rental boat and continue until Sept. 9 but two recent efforts to secure funding have met resistance in the General Assembly’s state Senate.
Meanwhile, if the original boat being built in Hubert by a new company, Waterline, and which has suffered numerous delays is finally ready for service in August, passenger ferry service could possibly start then—if the N.C. Ferry Division has funding for it.
Hyde County Manager Kris Cahoon Noble laid out these issues Tuesday in an interview that also included Ocracoke’s county commissioner Randal Mathews and Bill Rich, former Hyde County manager and now special projects coordinator.
“They’re doing sea trials now from what I’ve been told,” Noble said.
The two bills with amendments to fund the passenger ferry this year are in committee.
The first bill, House Bill 165, which deals with NCDOT highway funding, includes an amendment for $943,000 for the passenger ferry, $62,917 to reimburse Carteret County for having provided this amount last fall to Hyde County to fulfill the local match requirements for grant funds to dredge the Big Foot Slough channel and $362,000 to be used for North Carolina coastal dredging.
According to the calendar on the N.C. General Assembly website, this bill was referred to the Senate Rules Committee on May 10.
A second bill, S241, to regulate all-terrain vehicles, was generated in the Senate (S241) and sent to the House.
This bill added the passenger ferry funding amendment and again passed the House and was sent back to the Senate in late May. But the Senate did not concur with this bill on June 1 and a conference committee, to hammer out differences, was set on June 2. They are meeting on this issue today (Wednesday).
Among the Senate conferees are Ocracoke’s representatives Sen. Bob Steinburg and Hanig, the latter of whom Noble said has been working sedulously on getting this legislation passed.
Senate members have shown two different oppositions towards appropriating this money for the passenger ferry.
“It’s a either we don’t need it, period, or we can just wait for the Ferry Division’s passenger ferry,” she said.
Noble suggests that if the Ocracoke community contacts Steinburg and these other senators ASAP about the need to have a passenger ferry now, we may get some action.
“If our community really wants (the passenger ferry) then we can, as we always have, stand up and make sure Senator Steinberg knows that we really need this and we really want this,” she said.
Time is of the essence because the island basically has five months (from May to September) to make 12 months of income.
“To wait until August, we’re basically just completely losing out on that whole summer revenue,” Noble said.
She also suggested that islanders contact Gov. Roy Cooper.
“It will not hurt us to reach out to the governor, that he’ll be in on our side and advocating for us,” she said. “Governor Cooper came here (twice after Hurricane Dorian in 2019). He saw with his own eyes what happened. He knows what a tremendous job we’ve done rebuilding this place. He knows we still have work to do but we’re super self-sufficient and we only need a little bit of a helping hand to get us back to where we are.”
The sales tax generated by the people who would use the passenger ferry is crucial to Hyde County and Hyde County Schools, which both need every bit of sales tax revenue that can be garnered.
The funding models right now are skewed against Ocracoke because of its small year-round population, she said, but what they do not count is that Ocracoke receives a half million or more visitors each year.
“We’re not getting what we need from the state to accommodate that travel and tourism,” she said. “We need that boat.”
The Outer Banks — these island chains — are worth a lot in terms of state revenues, Mathews said.
Noble noted that we need a sustainable funding mechanism that we can count on because we cannot continue to fight for this funding during the short summer session every year.
Even with Hyde County’s limited resources, it has met all of its obligations under this project: building the tram stops, funding the trams for the passengers to ride.
“We’re one of the poorest counties in the state of North Carolina, and we’ve made it a priority,” she said. “Through occupancy tax funds we have made it work.”
The N.C. Dept. of Transportation in 2017 awarded a $4.15 million contract to Armstrong Marine Inc. in Swansboro to build a catamaran-style walk-on ferry. For a variety of reasons, completion and approval were delayed causing the Ferry Division to lease a boat.
Ridership on the substitute “Ocracoke Express” finally began in 2019, and when it exceeded expectations most business owners on Ocracoke were pleasantly surprised. Last year, the walk-on ferry was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic and then ridership was limited resulting in fewer riders than the previous year.
“A lot of retirees up in Hatteras specifically take it so that they don’t have to drive,” noted Anna Rucker, owner of the Sunglass Shop, about the ferry. “Customers talk about the passenger ferry and like it. It’s a good idea.”
Even though Ocracoke has not had a full year of passenger ferry service, what service we’ve had has mitigated the long waiting lines at the Hatteras ferry dock, Noble said.
“Every day, there are folks in the Hatteras parking lot that want to spend money and we can’t get ‘em here,” Noble said.
According to the NCDOT website, the department’s annual budget is about $5 billion while the Ferry Division’s portion of that is about $5 million, or 1.1%.
As part of North Carolina’s effort to encourage more North Carolinians to receive COVID-19 vaccines, Governor Roy Cooper announced $4 Million Summer Cash and College Tuition drawings to motivate those who have not yet been vaccinated — and thank those who have.
Four vaccinated North Carolinians 18 and older will win $1 million each and four North Carolinians ages 12 to 17 will win tuition for post-secondary education.
North Carolinians 18 and over who have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine will be automatically entered into four drawings for a chance to win a $1 million cash prize. Youth between the ages of 12 and 17 who have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine will be automatically entered into four drawings to win $125,000 towards post-secondary education. The $125,000 can be used at any post-secondary institution and is awarded in the form of a NC 529 account.
The $4 Million Summer Cash and Summer Cash 4 College Drawings will run from June 23 through Aug. 4.
All North Carolina residents 12 and older who have been vaccinated with at least one dose are eligible, some restrictions may apply.
Those vaccinated on or after June 10 will be entered twice for each drawing increasing the chance of winning for the newly vaccinated.
Drawings will take place every other week on Wednesdays with the first drawing on June 23. New entries will close at midnight on the Sunday prior to the Wednesday drawing. Winners will be verified and then announced.
Executive Order 219, which has concurrence from the North Carolina Council of State, authorizes the drawings.
