A little extra cash never hurt anyone. But New Jersey’s Pearlie Smith’s “extra cash” has come in the form of $429. 6 million, which she intends to split with her seven children.
The family was identified this weekend as the Powerball jackpot winners and says the winning numbers came to them from God.
“We had divine intervention,” Valerie Arthur, the oldest said. “That’s the only way you can explain how the numbers were chosen. It was through a dream.”
Arthur said she was taken back when she and the rest of the family realized they won, and even more shocked when they learned they were the only winners. The Smiths says they’re bracing themselves for “family members” to come out the shadows now that news has broke of their good fortune.
“In about an hour, everybody is going to come out of the woodwork,” Arthur, who recently retired as a prison administrator said. “I know everybody in the Department of Corrections will be calling me.”
Now that the family is half a billion dollars richer, they plan on paying off mortgages, student loans and putting their money to good use in the Trenton community.
Back in January, America was in frenzy trying their luck to win the $1.6 billion jackpot. Despite the chance being 1 in 292.2 million, one woman in Tennessee alleges to have spent all her money, so much so she ended up being homeless and asked the kind Samaritans of the world to spot her a few buck for her Powerball reimbursement Go Fund Me page. Needless to say, that didn’t go too well.
However, Pearlie Smith, 70, purchased her winning ticket at a nearby Trenton, N.J. 7-Eleven fair and square, and now gets to enjoy her twilight years with a little “extra cash” in her pocket.
Congrats to the family.