Nine educational assistants from an east Ottawa school waited almost three weeks before discovering they won a million-dollar prize on their third try.
The group from St. Peter Catholic High School in Orleans all work with students with special needs and said the Lotto Max money is life-altering, not life-changing.
“You still have to go to work the next day, but you have a skip in your step,” said Linda Cunningham. “No question, a $100,000 plus puts a skip in your step."
“I was numb. Initially, I was just numb. Wow,” said Dave Watts. “A hundred thousand, one hundred eleven dollars and eleven cents (each).”
The win was the talk of the school on Monday, as students who knew the group said they were almost as excited as the winners.
“They work so hard with high needs kids and I'm thrilled, I have no words right now I'm so happy," said Raffy Antranikian.
“We know that those EA's may not necessarily come in for the high pay, but they get such an emotional satisfaction and now they're getting rewarded for it so it's really great," said Esther Barrett.
The money isn’t enough to fill all their wildest dreams, but some of the winners said they did have plans in the works.
“I just got a new car couple of weeks ago so that's going to be paid off,” Watts said. “Line of credit, things like that."
“We've been married almost 25 years and we've never really done anything like that,” said Cunningham of a planned trip to Australia. “I'm really looking forward to it."
With a report from CTV Ottawa’s Norman Fetterley
