Editor’s note: After this story was written, a ticket sold in Arkansas won the Mega Millions jackpot in the Dec. 24 drawing, worth $1.817 billion. The winner hasn’t been publicly identified.
As this is being written, the Powerball jackpot stands at $1.7 billion. I choose to ignore the fact that a single payout would be less than $800 million and simply dream about what I could do with the entire $1.7 billion.
I have never played the lottery because I simply don’t like the odds of winning anything, but it’s nice to consider what a huge jackpot could mean and could do. The last I heard, the odds of winning were 292,000,000 to one. A bit too steep for my conservatism.
Anyway, here’s how I’d dispense with at least some of the winnings, and these are only the beginning. Assuming that even after dispensing this initial largesse, there would still be a good deal left, I’d revisit the amounts for each recipient and possibly increase them if they requested it.
Twenty million each to Shriner’s Hospitals and St. Jude.
Ten million each to the Bluegrass Heritage Museum and Leed’s Theater (to the latter if they’d agree to book the Kingston Trio for one performance and offer free attendance).
Twenty million to the City of Winchester to complete the work currently under consideration on North Main and south to Boone Avenue (maybe all the way to French Avenue).
Twenty million to the Clark County School Board. What better way to invest in the future?
Twenty million to the Clark Regional Medical Center, stipulating that all the money would go toward patient care and not to corporate profits. This money would be allocated to fill the gaps created by “The Big Beautiful Bill”.
Ten million dollars to the Stoneybrook Neighborhood Association to—hopefully—purchase the park abutting the neighborhood and endow it with sufficient funds to keep the park pristine for the foreseeable future.
Twenty-five million dollars to the local government to purchase additional park land and to maintain all the parks in the near future.
Ten million dollars to the library with a firm stipulation that its bylaws would be rewritten to comply with the provisions of the American Library Association and could never be abrogated.
Two million dollars to WinCity Media, to be placed in an endowment to keep it operating well into the future.
One million dollars to each of the local non-profits listed on WinCity Helps.
Two million dollars to Hospice East.
One million dollars to the firm for which I worked for thirty years. It doesn’t need the money, but it provided so well for me for those thirty years that it would be nice to acknowledge it.
Twenty million dollars to the Clark Community Fund, to be distributed in designated amounts each year from an endowment funded with those funds. I think it would be reasonable to set some pretty stringent requirements for who would receive the yearly grants.
Five million dollars each to KET and WEKU, both media outlets that do so much for the state.
Two million dollars to the Kentucky ACLU.
Two million dollars to Americans United for the Separation of Church and State.
A million dollars to the Humanists of Winchester. I know they would spend the money to help other local charitable organizations.
I’m sure I would be generous to many of my friends and acquaintances who might need smaller sums to address personal issues or get out of debt.
I also have several nieces and nephews who could probably use some money for various things, even though they are all doing well on their own.
Even with expending these amounts, there would be large sums remaining, more than I could probably dispense with reasonably in my remaining years, so I would hope that my heirs would use it wisely and for good and charitable causes, possibly setting up an endowment fund from which they could draw annually for donations to charitable organizations.
Never miss a thing with our FREE weekly newsletter.
I expect there are some other places I would like to donate to that I simply can’t think of at the moment, but with the remaining funds, many of them could be addressed later.
I believe that giving away these funds would be the most valuable thing I could do in my life. I honestly can’t think of anything extravagant that I might want to do for myself. I live comfortably, have no desire to travel extensively, buy a bigger, grander house, or an expensive car.
I know I could be happier seeing other people happy.
Well, one can always dream.
