The winner of the 2015 Great North Air Ambulance Service (GNAAS) car raffle has been announced as Whitehaven man John Brown.
The 55-year-old bought one of 118,973 tickets sold in the annual event. As well as the ticket sales, an additional £18,846 was donated, bringing the total amount raised for GNAAS to £137,819.
The first prize was a brand new VW up! donated by the Benfield Charitable Trust.
Mr Brown missed the initial call from GNAAS after his winning ticket was selected at random. When he listened to the answerphone message from the charity he assumed he had made an error filling in his ticket stub.
“I thought I’d done something wrong,” he added. “But when I found out I had won, I couldn’t believe it. It’s fantastic.”
Mr Brown has been playing the charity’s 50p a week lottery for years, and said he always takes a chance on the annual raffle as well.
“I don’t enter thinking that I’m going to win,” he said. “I enter because I want to support the charity. It’s just my small way of contributing, and now I’ve won the raffle.”
Ruth Davey, events manager at GNAAS, said: “The raffle was supported throughout our area, from North Yorkshire, through the North-East and over to Cumbria. Everyone who bought a ticket should be proud of what they’ve achieved.
“The money will be spent supporting the air ambulance’s work wherever it is needed. We’d just like to thank everyone involved for making the raffle possible, from everyone buying tickets to Benfield Charitable Trust, who donated the grand prize.”
The charity also wished to thank Wynyard Hall for donating the second prize of an overnight stay for two.
The GNAAS car raffle will return in 2016. For more information about the charity’s weekly lottery, please visit gnaas.com/lottery.
Share
