Fortune came for a lotto winner in a cookie jar after some terrible times, and a family facing foreclosure discovered an amazing windfall that had been quietly dormant for months.
Ricardo Cerezo is the Illinois lotto winner in the cookie jar stunner, but the immensely good ($4 million plus) fortune follows a series of very difficult events for the Geneva family.
Cerezo’s wife knew her hubby had a habit of purchasing lottery tickets and letting them sit in the jar — and while cleaning, she threatened to toss the scraps of paper clutter if he didn’t do something with them.
It was a good thing he did — one of the tickets, purchased way back in February, was worth a shocking $4.85 million.
The lotto winner in a cookie jar was in need of money, for sure, and he recalls the shocking moment when he realized how much of a fortune he’d been sitting on. Cerezo explains that the eight of 11 tickets was the big win, and says the screen flashed “file a claim” when it was scanned:
“I’m awestruck, this is unbelievable … I thought I had probably won about $600 … When I realized we had all six numbers, it was that shocking moment of ‘Whoa, can this really be?’ So I called my son over and asked him to double check this … And he looked it through and goes, ‘Yep, looks like a winner.’ ”
But the Cerezo family’s win was terribly bittersweet — daughter Savannah, who’d purchased the jar for her parents — died after suffering seizures.
Her dad lamented being unable to share the lotto win with her but also believes she had a hand in rescuing her family from looming foreclosure:
Heartbreakingly, Cerezo said of his initial reaction:
“The honest first reaction was mammoth regret. Regret because our youngest wasn’t here to enjoy this.”
After the lotto winner’s cookie jar find, he says it is “very important to us that we help others with this money.” Cerezo also said he sees the windfall as a gift from Savannah.
