Barry’s Bay – Second generation cottagers Edgar and Gerri Lucas have been travelling to the Barry’s Bay area for the last half century, but last Wednesday’s drive from their Bowmanville home was an extra special one as they were in town to claim their Catch the Ace lottery win of almost half a million dollars.

The couple have been long time supporters of the St. Francis Valley Healthcare Foundation’s popular fundraiser and when they learned late in the afternoon of Thursday, October 18 their name had been pulled from about the 34,000 tickets sold for the final draw, they were both left in shock…but a pleasant kind of shock.

“There are no words to describe how we feel,” Mr. Lucas said at St. Francis Memorial Hospital last Wednesday where they were presented with their cheque. “Thank you, thank you, thank you. We were driving up today and we are still in shock.”

Mr. Lucas just happened to be leaving a liquor store when he received a phone call notifying him his name had been drawn.

“And I sat down for the conversation and said, ‘I guess I am going to have to go back in’, so we did have a bottle of champagne with some dear friends of ours who are always coming up here, and who also purchase tickets.”

Mr. Lucas is 68 and his wife is 63. He retired from his business, an art gallery and book store, just before COVID hit and she after 40 years at a local credit union.

He immediately called his wife to share the good news, but at first, she didn’t believe him.

“Every Thursday at 5 o’clock we always check the website to see who has won and I pulled out my phone and I am seeing congratulations. People who we know from up here were already messaging me.”

The couple are long-time supporters of the draw and say it is for a good purpose. As for their plans, they will take a trip with their family, invest some of it smartly for rainy days and likely upgrade the main bathroom in their cottage which is one of the last major things that has to be done.

“The cottage was built in 1974 and our bathroom is still from 1974,” Mrs. Lucas remarked.

“We did a lot of upgrades, but the main bathroom is the last thing to do,” he added. “We are going to fix it.”

Mr. and Mrs. Lucas love the Barry’s Bay community and the people and spend about 80 percent of their time on the lake. The fact the cottage has been in the family 50 years was why Mr. Lucas chose the  envelope number 50 to contain the Ace of Spades.

“I told my wife when it got to, like the last six numbers, it’s 50, it’s 50. You have got to keep picking 50. We have no choice.”

For anyone unfamiliar with the lottery, there are 52 envelopes with each one containing a card from a deck of cards. When a person buys a ticket, they guess which envelope contains the Ace of Spades. Twenty percent of the proceeds from each week’s sale of tickets goes to the weekly draw winner and 30 percent is added to the progressive jackpot. Fifty percent of the proceeds from each draw goes to the Foundation. If  the Ace of Spades is not revealed, the progressive jackpot keeps building.

It is rare for a draw to go the full 52 weeks, but it has happened in a few locations across the country. Several of the draws sponsored by hospitals and other institutions in Renfrew County have lasted into the upper 40s.

Foundation Executive Director Erin Gienow said the final draw created a real excitement and buzz in the community and it was so much fun for everyone involved.

“The last draw sold just over 34,000 tickets, so we were kept extremely busy,” she said. “That’s $340,000.

“We have such an awesome team of volunteers.”

Because the jackpot had to go in the last draw as it was down to the last envelope, volunteers had to do multiple ticket pickups at locations throughout the area.

This most recent lottery, the seventh since the Foundation became involved in the lottery in 2019, has raised nearly $1.3 million for St. Francis Memorial Hospital, Valley Manor Long Term Care Nursing Home and Madawaska Valley Hospice Palliative Care. The Foundation helps to advance local healthcare by ensuring support for equipment and facility needs for the three primary healthcare organizations.

Since the first Catch the Ace lottery was held in 2019, it has raised nearly $1.3 million in seven lotteries for the Foundation. But not all of the lotteries have had long runs like the most recent one. The first lottery ran for only nine weeks before the Ace of Spades was found and the same happened in the second lottery later the same year. The third lottery started in the fall of 2019 and ran for 47 weeks, but the fourth lottery that launched in April 2021 ended after 18 weeks.

The fifth lottery kicked off in the fall of 2021 and had a 42-week run and the sixth draw, launched in October 2022, lasted 35 weeks.

Mr. Lucas’ win was broken down into the weekly prize of $68,020 plus the progressive jackpot of $411,810.

The final draw cleared $660,000 for the Foundation.