The quiet Quebec town of St. Paul's River is home to about 150 people, and for 18 years, a group of those residents have bought lottery tickets as part of a pool, reports Global News. Earlier this month, they won—big—turning nearly 10% of the town's residents into millionaires. Fourteen people, all but one of whom call the town home, won Quebec's Lotto Max $50 million Canadian jackpot; that's $3,571,428 each, or about $2.5 million in US dollars, pretax.
A press release recounts how the happy story unfolded:
- "The excellent news spread like wildfire in the region. At dawn on September 6, while drinking her coffee, one of the members discovered that her lottery group had won the Lotto Max jackpot. Through calls and word of mouth, the other winners were quickly tracked down: The notebook in which store employees usually write down the names of group players was very useful! Soon, everyone gathered at the general store for an impromptu party filled with cries of joy and emotions."
Della Spingle and her husband, Chesley Griffin, were double winners, reports the CBC: Their general store sold the winning ticket, earning them an extra $500,000. The ripple effect has been immediate. Local carpenters are fielding calls from winners planning long-awaited home renovations; Loretta Griffin, in her 70s, says she can finally retire from the job she's held on the floor of a fish plant for 30 years. As a laughing Spingle puts it, "We won $3.5 million …. It was hard to believe this, right? ... I've been giggling ever since."
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