When Judy Evans missed a call from an unknown number, she almost didn’t call it back for fear it was just a scammer up to their old tricks.
But when she finally did, Ms Evans received the news of a lifetime —she’d won a brand new car in the Lexus Lottery for Telethon.
“I was jumping for joy, and would not believe it because I’ve never won anything before,” she said.
“It’s extraordinary.”
The Mosman Park winner collected her prize totalling more than $62,000 from Lexus of Perth in Osborne Park on Thursday, where staff guided her through the bells and whistles of her new hybrid LBX Sports Luxury 2WD.
Lexus of Perth Managing Director David Jeary said the car had only recently been released on the market — with Perth buyers facing a waitlist to get their hands on it.
“It’s only been out for a very short period of time but has proven very popular,” he said.
Ms Evans has been donating money to Telethon for many years, but she said she’d purchased the tickets for the major prize on a whim this year after seeing an ad for the draw in The West Australian.
Judy Evans, the winner of the Lexus Lottery for Telethon with David Jeary, Managing Director at Lexus collecting her new vehicle from Lexus of Perth. Credit: Ross Swanborough/The West Australian
“I just thought, ‘oh, well that’s what I’ll do this year, I’ll just buy a few tickets’,” she said.
“We are great believers in giving to research programs because I think research programs are the key to the future.”
The car was the 19th to be donated by the car group as part of their annual fundraiser for Telethon — which Mr Jeary said was a cause close to his heart having spent time as a youngster raising money for the charity event and personally hand-delivering it to Chanel 7’s old Tuart Hill studio.
“It just felt good to actually be a part of something and to be doing some good for the community, and I suppose as I got older I thought that’s something that now I can do on a slightly larger scale,” he said.
“And so I’ve been really happy to be able to be involved with Telethon and to still raise money for Telethon, just in a slightly different way.”
Donations to Telethon this year raised a mammoth $83.3 million for more than 130 children’s charities, beneficiaries and community organisations in the medical research and support space.
First published by The West Australian.