Dining services at Washington University in St. Louis has implemented a raffle to promote extended hours at some of the serving stations at its Village dining center, reports the school’s Student Life newspaper. Closing time was moved up to 9 pm at the beginning of the recent semester to accommodate student requests, but traffic was less than expected in the early going, so Dining Services worked with the Student Union to create a raffle that students coming in at the newly available later hours can enter (but only once).

Prizes, which include gift certificates to area stores and the campus bookstore, were purchased by the Student Union. The goal is to raise awareness of the newly extended hours for some of the most popular stations. For example, the stir fry station, which used to close at 8 pm Sunday through Thursday, is now open an hour longer, while the Village Grill now closes at 2 am rather than midnight on weekends. The raffle will accept entries until the week before spring break.