Photo by Alison James
Hallman announces the hefty prize to an excited student body.

A cheer erupted from the students of East Franklin Junior High School Friday morning as Principal Nancy Hallman made a special announcement. It wasn’t about extended recess. It wasn’t about pizza for lunch or a snow day. The exciting news was that EFJHS was a sweepstakes winner of $10,000.

EFJHS PTO President Jamie Duboise has made a hobby of entering sweepstakes. It’s something she does in the evenings, just for fun, and occasionally she is a lucky winner. But when she came across the Campbell’s Grand Stand for Schools $1,000,000 giveaway, she put her sweepstakes skills to work for East Franklin students and teachers.

“County schools always need extra money if we can find it,” said Duboise, who has three sons in EFJHS – in kindergarten, second and fourth grade. “County schools struggle a little.”

Duboise notified the school about the giveaway, and notes went home to parents. “We were trying to think of ways to raise money,” Duboise said, “and I just told everybody about this and showed them how to go online and enter.” The sweepstakes promised a $10K prize to 100 schools. Through Oct. 31, 2016, parents and teachers visited the sweepstakes website and submitted entries for East Franklin.

Just before the holiday break, Hallman received a call that EFJHS was a winner.

“At first, whenever they called, we didn’t really know if it was real,” said Hallman. But the school sent back their tax ID information, and a big “Christmas gift” – a $10K check – soon arrived. “When we got it in the mail, we were really excited.”

It’s impossible to know exactly whose entry was the winner for EFJHS, but ultimately, everyone wins, since the school now has a nice “chunk of change” to make a purchase that will benefit everyone. Hallman said no decision has been made yet on what the $10K will go toward; computers are a possibility.

“We’ll have to have a committee to vote on what we’re going to use it for. We haven’t really decided yet,” Hallman said. “We can all decide how it should be spent.”

Hallman credited all the parents and teachers, who were diligent to vote each day, for bringing this good fortune to EFJHS.