North Carolina $250,000 lottery win helped fund 124,000 meals

A $250,000 North Carolina lottery prize claimed by a Charlotte chef in January 2019 went on to support food assistance efforts in North Carolina, El Salvador and the Dominican Republic, according to the North Carolina Education Lottery.

The prize came from a Hit $500 scratch-off ticket. The official North Carolina Education Lottery winner records list the $250,000 prize as claimed on Jan. 23, 2019, establishing the date attached to the win.

The lottery’s FY2019 annual report identifies the winner as being from Charlotte and says the prize money was intended to help a foundation finish a cafeteria in the Dominican Republic. The project was meant to provide meals for people facing hunger, connecting the lottery win to a longer-term food assistance effort rather than only an immediate donation.

A later lottery retrospective also described the prize as helping build that cafeteria. The same account said the foundation had fed more than 300 children, offering an earlier measure of the reach of the charitable work tied to the winnings.

The charitable projects later extended to North Carolina. During the pandemic, the winnings helped support the donation of 64,000 meals in the state, according to a North Carolina Education Lottery account.

The money also helped support another 60,000 meals in El Salvador. Together, the two meal figures represent support for 124,000 meals in North Carolina and El Salvador, while the Dominican Republic cafeteria project added a separate focus on creating a place to feed people in need.

The chef created The Chef Heaven’s Kitchen organization to help feed people in need. The organization became part of the effort to direct the prize toward food assistance in multiple locations.

The lottery has described the winner’s professional background as including work as a chef for five U.S. presidents. That background was included in the lottery’s accounts of the win, but the charitable use of the prize has remained the central development in the story.

The North Carolina Education Lottery included the $250,000 win among its top 10 winner stories of 2019. The recognition placed the prize among the lottery’s notable winner accounts from that year, before later accounts documented the meals and cafeteria work supported by the winnings.

The lottery’s 2020 retrospective identified the prize as a January 2019 win and again connected it to the Dominican Republic cafeteria. It also reported that the foundation had fed more than 300 children, adding to the record of assistance associated with the prize.

The more recent lottery account says the chef is preparing to open Tikka Tequila, a restaurant in Chapel Hill. That planned restaurant represents another North Carolina project connected to the chef’s work, alongside The Chef Heaven’s Kitchen organization and its food assistance efforts.

The prize remains recorded in the North Carolina Education Lottery’s official winner records as a $250,000 claim made on Jan. 23, 2019. Readers seeking current information about North Carolina games can use the state’s latest North Carolina lottery results page; the historical prize claim is separate from current draw information.