Lottery winner buys motel room for homeless man on subzero night

Woman wins lottery and uses prize to help homeless man.

(Image credit: TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP/Getty Images)

last updated 16 February 2016

A woman in Wareham, Massachusetts, won $200 in the lottery Saturday night — and proceeded to spend not a cent of her winnings on herself. On Sofia Andrade's drive home from learning she snagged the lucky scratch ticket, the single mother of three spotted someone else who she realized needed the money much more than she did: Glenn Williams, a man who had been homeless for three years and who was out panhandling in Saturday's frigid temperatures that dipped to -2 degrees Fahrenheit.

So, Andrade said, she took Williams to a coffee shop to help him out. Upon learning that all of the local shelters were full for the night, she decided to use her lottery winnings to get him a two-night stay at a motel room. "I knew that the money never really belonged to me," Andrade said. "This money was meant to help him." She added: "He was so overwhelmed by just the generosity of a coffee that he just couldn't stop crying."

Andrade's initial act of kindness inspired several others. A local barber gave him a haircut, others donated warm clothes, and a kid even made him a Valentine's Day card. Since Saturday, the New York Daily News reports that Andrade has raised enough money for Williams to stay another week at the motel while he searches for housing. "I couldn't believe there's somebody like her," Williams said. "She deserves a lot of the credit for where I am right now."