A group of teachers in Ohio won $1 million in a lottery pool and decided to share the money with the children of a late colleague.
“She was a good friend,” said Karen Rader, a retired art teacher from Crestview Elementary School in Ashland, about her late coworker, Mary Jo Manocchio, in an interview with WJW.
Rader has organized the 10-member lottery pool for six years. “Makes me get a little weepy,” she added. “She loved her kids, her own children and the children that she taught.”
Manocchio passed away from cancer in March 2021. Her fellow teachers continued to include her in the pool by contributing her share in her honor, according to the Ohio Lottery and WJW. She had taught at the school for more than 20 years, according to her obituary.
“Mary Jo loved children and immensely enjoyed teaching her students,” her loved ones wrote. “She was an active member within the Crestview community.”
Rader described her late friend as their “guardian angel.”
That sense of loyalty paid off on Wednesday, Aug. 6, when the group won $1,000,004 in a Powerball drawing, according to the Ohio Lottery.
Rader had purchased the winning ticket at a gas station. She realized what happened while drinking her coffee.
“I was talking to my daughter on the phone, and I was like, I think we won a million dollars!” she told the lottery. “I started texting everyone and they were like no way, no way, and so they checked the numbers themselves, and they were like, we did win!”
After taxes, each teacher will take home about $72,000. Some plan to pay off mortgages, while others may buy new cars.
Manocchio’s share will go to her four adult children, WJW reported.
“They are thinking about doing something as a family, maybe some type of a memorial in their mom’s memory, or take a family trip,” Rader said. “That is what Mary Jo would have loved, to have her family together.”
