But when it was discovered that both John and his partner Amarlia Veenstra are employees of Navorina Nursing Home, the excitement intensified.
Having purchased just one ticket in the fundraising raffle, John and Amarlia now own a a brand new Toyota Corolla sedan Ascent Sport with 12 months of registration.
And the win could not have come at a better time for the couple.
Their family car has been on the blink, and the pair have been researching a replacement.
“We’d been looking for a new car, but we didn’t really know what we wanted,” Amarlia said.
“I remember driving past the raffle car in the CBD one day and saying to John ‘ a car like that would be good’.”
There were more than 1000 tickets in the raffle, with John’s winning ticket being number 1016.
And when his name was called, Amarlia was in the crowd at the gala mega auction night for Navoirina at the Deniliquin RSL Club.
She immediately called John, who initially thought she was playing a prank.
“I was floored; I didn’t believe her,” he said.
Amarlia has worked at Navorina for three years and is hospitality manager, and John joined the maintenance crew just over a year ago.
Navorina Nursing Home chairman Neville Purtill said it was a pleasure to handover the car to not only locals, but employees of the facility.
The car was donated by Deniliquin Toyota.
Dealership owner Steve Holloway said donating seemed only natural given his connection to the facility.
“My mother Sheila Small and uncle Jim Small were residents here, and my aunty Judy Small still is. I have a lot of history here,” he said.
Mr Purtill said that connection “epitomises” his reasons for being involved in Navorina and the fundraising appeal.
“Our parents were the generation to build this facility, and it’s up to us to continue their work,” Mr Purtill said.
Friday’s charity auction was organised as part of a $1 million appeal to complete a long-running, multi-stage upgrade of Navorina Nursing Home.
The upgrades provide modern facilities for residents and their guests, specialist space for visiting allied health professionals and increases the number of beds to 60.
As a result of the night, $273,000 was added to the $450,000 in donations already banked since the appeal was launched in June last year.
The bulk of the amount was raised through the auction of a block of land in Crispe St donated by Mr Purtill and his wife Debbie, which generated a lot of interest and eventually sold for $171,000.
Another 33 items on the auction list were also sold, with the total also incorporating the 340 tickets sold for the gala and a raffle drawn on the night.
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