Carrie Miller thought she had been pranked.
The Donald Street resident answered the phone on Wednesday afternoon and was told she was the grand-prize winner of a Jayco camping trailer, and at first breath, did not believe the St. John Ambulance’s Shannon Horne was telling the truth.
“I’m just totally ecstatic,” she said moments later, once reality had finally started to set in that she had won the $40,000 prize.
“This is like the best year ever. I had a baby boy in January. This is just great.”
The youngster has a summer filled with camping ahead of him, she added, noting the $10 ticket was a great investment, win or lose.
“I think it’s a great cause. They go out to all the events in Thunder Bay,” said Miller, who took a baby-related course from St. John Ambulance earlier this year.
Horne, the fund development and marketing co-ordinator, said once again the draw was a huge hit with the public, who bought all 7,300 tickets put up for sale to benefit the organization.
“We don’t have the final amount in that we have raised, but all money raised will stay local,” Horne said. “And it will go to St. John Ambulance community service programs.”
The programs are wide-reaching and benefit thousands of people in the community, she added.
“We have our medical first-response division. So they go out to events and make sure that people are safe. We have our therapy dog program, which goes into hospitals and into schools to do visits with people and make their day brighter.
“We have our car-seat safety inspection program. So people come to our clinics or they make an appointment here just to have their car seats checked to make sure they’re installed properly so their child is safe with driving with their parent.”
There’s also a youth services division that meets weekly and is active in the community learning about CPR, first aid and babysitting.
“They also go on to be members of our medical first-response division.”
Finally, there’s the school program for students in Grade 3 and 6 that sends first-aid instructors into classrooms to teach first aid.
Second prize, a pair of kayaks from WildWaters McIntyre Kayak and Canoe rentals worth more than $4,000, went to Christine Syroid, while third prize, airfare for two to anywhere WestJet flies in North America, was claimed by Sally Carr.
