When most people dream of winning the lottery, they picture yachts on the Mediterranean, red Ferraris, or sprawling mansions behind gated walls. But for Carrie Edwards of Midlothian, Virginia, her dream looked very different.
Edwards, a retired PR executive, matched four of the first five numbers plus the Powerball in the September 8 drawing — normally a $50,000 prize. Because she had opted for the $1 Power Play, her winnings tripled to $150,000.
The twist? She hadn’t even meant to enter. Edwards bought her ticket online and accidentally clicked “draw two” instead of “draw one,” which entered her into both the Virginia Powerball and the national Powerball drawing. Unsure which numbers to play, she turned to ChatGPT for help.
“Chat wrote back and said, ‘luck is luck,’” Edwards recalls. “Then it gave me five sets of numbers — they didn’t mean anything to me, but those are the ones I entered.”
‘You need to just give it all away’
With AI’s nudge, Edwards walked away with $150,000. Yet instead of keeping it, she made a stunning choice.
“I felt this divine presence say, ‘You need to just give it all away,’” she said.
On September 16, rather than booking a trip to Bali or fanning herself with $100 bills, Edwards divided her winnings among causes closest to her heart.
“Were we surprised Carrie did it? No,” said Gillian Gonzalez, chief development and communications officer for the Navy-Marine Corps Relief Society (NMCRS). “That is, at her core, who she is.”
Edwards’ father, a career Navy officer, instilled in her the importance of giving back. For decades she and her family have supported the NMCRS, and part of her winnings will go to the organization’s work supporting sailors and Marines.
“She puts others before herself all the time,” Gonzalez said. “What does the gift mean? It’s making a huge impact on the sailors and Marines who come to us for financial assistance. But what you can’t put a number on is the awareness it creates.”
‘The best thing I can do is be an example to the world’
Edwards also made a deeply personal donation to the Association for Frontotemporal Degeneration (AFTD), which supports research, education, and families affected by early-onset dementia. She gave in memory of her husband, Steve, who passed away from FTD in December 2023.
“It just came over me that the best thing I can do is be an example to the world — which we need right now — of what it’s like to care for one another,” Edwards said.
Carrie and Steve were high school sweethearts who built a life together in Fairfax County. Steve served as a firefighter for decades and was battalion chief of quadrant four at the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. The couple was married 47 years before his passing.
“Carrie’s remarkable gift will fuel vital research and help accelerate the path toward treatments and a future free of FTD,” said AFTD CEO Susan L-J Dickinson.
After Steve’s diagnosis, the Edwards family moved from Fairfax to the Richmond area to be closer to their three children and six grandchildren.
‘I’ve been so blessed’
The third benefactor of Edwards’ lottery winnings is to Shalom Farms, a nonprofit farm and food justice organization working for an equitable food system in Richmond. Edwards volunteers with the food outreach program.
“It’s an important community gift for me to give to them to be able to help grow more fruits and vegetables and help more people in the Richmond area and set an example for other communities,” Edward says.
In reality, after taxes are taken out, the lottery winnings equal about $108,000, Edwards says. She plans to make up the difference out of her own pocket, so her total giving will be $150,000. For Edwards, giving away her winnings is her way to pay it forward.
“I’ve been so blessed,” she says. “I want people to realize that when you are blessed, bless somebody else.”
Feature image of Carrie Edwards, left, and NMCRS representative Gillian Gonzalez courtesy Carrie Edwards
