Joe Camp Charlotte, North Carolina pre school teacher who was laid off after 20 years and who lost his father to COVID-19 wins $250,000 state scratch off lottery.
A Charlotte, North Carolina preschool teacher who was recently laid off only to then lose his father to the coronavirus — has told of winning $250,000 in a scratch-off lottery on Christmas Eve.
‘I fell to my knees at the gas pump,’ Joe Camp said of scratching off his prize, describing his turn in fortune in a news release from the North Carolina Lottery.
Camp purchased his winning ‘Gold Rush’ ticket from the Coulwood BP on Belhaven Boulevard in Charlotte.
He said he buys a scratch-off ticket every Thursday morning. This time he bought two.
‘I didn’t win on the first one, so I tried the second and I scratched it off, and I fell to my knees at the gas pump,’ Camp told via WSOCTV.
Camp won a top prize of $250,000, beating odds of 1 in 1.2 million.
Camp claimed his prize on Monday and took home $176,876 after state and federal taxes. He plans to use the money for a new home he can pass down to his grandkids and to help with his daughter’s education.
His plans include buying a new home he can pass down to his grandkids, and paying for his daughter’s education.
‘What I plan on doing with my winnings is having a future for my daughter,’ he said. ‘I want to have something for us. I never had anything.’
Adding, ‘No one passed anything down, and that’s what I want to do.’
His run of bad luck included getting laid off in September from a teaching job he’d held for two decades, and then losing his father to COVID-19 just a month later. Camp had taken a job at a car dealership when his luck turned.
‘It put me in a dark place,’ Camp said. ‘But I have a lot of friends and family that just told me to keep sticking in there, keep believing in myself.’
