Juliette Lamour, who at five years old donated her piggy bank savings to Haiti earthquake relief, won a $48 million Canadian lottery jackpot with the first ticket she ever bought, according to the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation (OLG). The win came from the January 7, 2023, Lotto 6/49 Gold Ball draw, and OLG confirmed her as the winner on February 3, making her the youngest person in Canadian lottery history to win a jackpot of that size.
A childhood act of generosity
In January 2010, five-year-old Juliette Lamour and her younger sister, Sophie, walked into a hockey arena in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, carrying a bright pink piggy bank. Inside it was every cent they had saved together: $61.38. A devastating earthquake had struck Haiti weeks earlier, killing tens of thousands of people and leaving many more in need of food, shelter and medical assistance.
The Canadian Red Cross had set up a donation table at Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds hockey game to collect money for relief efforts. The sisters, dressed in their Greyhounds jerseys, decided to give what they had. A photograph of the two girls standing with their piggy bank was published by local news outlet SooToday on January 26, 2010. At the time, it was a small story about two children giving their savings to people they would probably never meet.
From piggy bank to jackpot
Lamour's win came after she had recently turned 18, the legal age to purchase lottery tickets in Ontario. She was preparing to visit her grandfather and had called to ask what flavour of ice cream he wanted. During the conversation, he suggested that she buy a lottery ticket to try her luck. She had never bought one before, so she called her father for instructions. He told her to purchase a Lotto 6/49 Quick Pick, in which the numbers are selected automatically.
The young lady bought the ticket at a Circle K convenience store at Pine and McNabb streets in Sault Ste. Marie. The following day, Lamour was working as a pharmacy assistant at Rexall when news spread that a winning $48 million ticket had been sold somewhere in the city. Her colleagues began checking their tickets, and she produced hers. Her boss checked it using the OLG app. The screen displayed the winning message, and the app played its winner jingle. Lamour initially struggled to believe what she was seeing. Her colleagues were stunned, and her mother reportedly did not believe her when she called to announce that she had won $48 million.
Community reaction and reflection
When Lamour came forward to collect her prize, SooToday revisited the photograph of her and Sophie donating their savings more than a decade earlier. During the February 3, 2023, cheque presentation, she was asked whether the childhood donation had somehow been rewarded by her extraordinary lottery win. “I don't know,” she said, according to SooToday's report. She acknowledged the positive messages people had been sending her, including the suggestion that good things happen to good people.
A child who once handed over her savings to help strangers had grown up to receive a fortune of her own. But Lamour did not claim that the two events were connected by fate. She said she was grateful for the win and intended to use the money to do good things. She also had plans that existed long before the lottery. At the time of her win, she was a first-year biology student at Algoma University and wanted to attend medical school, eventually returning to Northern Ontario to practise as a doctor. The money meant she could pursue that ambition without the same concerns about tuition, grants and student loans. She also spoke about keeping her family, friends and community in mind when deciding what to do with the winnings.
“We've always been big community people, and we want to give back to the community,” she told SooToday in an interview published after the win. The pink piggy bank did not disappear after the donation. According to SooToday's February 2023 report, Lamour still had it at home.
