Home new home: Kinta couple wins raffle house

By Bob Rosenburgh, Staff Writer

July 2 — “We’re still on Cloud 9,” said Carolyn Aldridge of Kinta, two days after her $100 raffle ticket paid off by winning her a $340,000 dream house in Jenks.

The house, raffled off on KJRH 2News in Tulsa, was the grand prize during the third annual St. Jude Dream Home Giveaway 2-hour telethon on Sunday. Proceeds from the telethon and raffle go to children’s medical research and all 7,500 of the $100 tickets sold out, plus an additional $7,400 in donations were received, setting a new record for the fundraiser.

“The idea of us being able to help St. Jude in any way is such a blessing,” Aldridge said. “Jay and I are overjoyed and thrilled. Just trying to help the parents and their children is a blessing.”

Aldridge said she never thought she had a real chance of winning, and almost didn’t buy the ticket, but now it’s a dream come true.

“Our daughter died 21 years ago,” she said, “and she was a diabetic, so we’ve always tried to send what we could to research and treatment.”

They were a little short this year, though, and she almost didn’t buy the ticket. “It seemed like a lot, but I felt inside that God wanted me to, so I took out my debit card and made the call.”

She said her husband, Jay, came in just as she was finishing and she told him she’d bought it. “He said that something deep down inside told him not to be mad and he just said ‘let’s do this.’”

Their next decision will be a bit more difficult, though, because it will have a heavy impact on their lives.

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