‘What Are The Odds?’ Canadian Wins New Cottage In Raffle After House Burned Down This Summer

‘What Are The Odds?’ Canadian Wins New Cottage In Raffle After House Burned Down This Summer

From far-western Canada comes the remarkable story of a man who entered a raffle to win a new house—just days before his home burned down.

The $50 that Mr. Daniel Drouin spent on the raffle ticket is now looking like a pretty tidy investment, as he has the option of choosing a prefabricated wooden cottage to fit a family, or $150,000.

A musician on Prince Edward Island, Drouin has two children, one of whom had been staying with friends, and the other with grandparents. He described the wild stroke of luck as “life-changing” and “a fresh start.”

It was early this summer that Drouin bought a ticket for the Big Brothers, Big Sisters charity raffle at the urging of his girlfriend. He had originally thought better of it, as over 10,000 people had already entered.

Life went on, presumably as usual, before he got a call at 2 a.m. in July from his son—the family house was on fire. The boy got everyone safely outside and called the fire department, but it looked like the Drouins were going to lose their home.

Disrupted and distributed, Mr. Drouin was settling in for a Saturday afternoon nap the day after a late night gig when he received a phone call from Myron Yates, executive director of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Prince Edward Island, with the news he had won the draw.

“It’s life-changing really,” Drouin told CBC News on Saturday. “It’s just such a weird coincidence that … I get picked out of that many people.”

“And then all the circumstances that’s happened with me and my family in the last month, and then you go and win the house. You know, it’s… what are the odds?”

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He told the national news that he planned to fill out the paperwork on Monday in Charlottetown, and check out the new cottage. He doesn’t own any land to put it on.

“It means a fresh start really, I mean, yeah, and a fresh start for the kids, too, and everybody will be back together,” he said.