Winners

Lotto millionaire’s gift to her community

Lotto millionaire and farmer Susan Herdman has been supporting her local community during the recent difficulties due to Coronavirus. The Lotto winner, who won a £1,182,714 jackpot in January 2010, has started a local potato delivery service.

Susan has been trying to protect herself and the people around her from catching the virus by doing her food shopping in local stores rather than big supermarkets. As many people have, she discovered shops were full of empty shelves. Susan said, “I was gobsmacked at how empty it was, there was no meat at all.”

Returning to her farm she realised that she could be in a position to help. The recent wet weather meant the farm had produced lots of surplus potatoes that were due to be ploughed back into the ground. “I thought, we have so many potatoes that we don’t need. We could sell them but why not give them away? In a world where everyone is grabbing and snatching, why not give?”

Instead of the potatoes going to waste, Susan put an announcement on Facebook asking if others wanted them. She was quickly inundated with messages: “People started to message me who couldn’t get out of the house for health reasons so I started to make up bags for people and deliver them. The people desperate for help just kept coming. We also loaded up a trailer and put a big sack in the village and asked people to be respectful of how many they took.”

In the face of panic buying and in a community with lots of elderly and vulnerable people Susan was happy to be able to help just with a humble spud or two. “I find it incredible because to me, it’s just a bag of potatoes but I’ve had a message from a single mother who is self-isolating telling me it’s unbelievable, her child loves mash and that it means the world to her! So many people have appreciated this. A lady also had three bags for a disabled children’s home that she manages.”

Susan intends, if she can do so safely, to continue to help out by local residents with a bit of shopping delivered to the door.

9th April 2020

The National Lottery has been changing the lives of winners and supporting good causes across the UK since 1994. In that time, there have been more than 7,000 new millionaires created and by playing The National Lottery you raise over £4 million for Good Causes every dayΔ.

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