By now you may have seen the story — a woman from Midlothian, Virginia, Carrie Edwards, buys a lottery ticket using ChatGPT and wins $150,000. But the remarkable part isn’t that she won. It’s what she did next.

She gave it all away.

Carrie, a 68 year old widow, said she heard the voice of the universe — or God, or something like it — say, “This is not your money.” And so she made good on that message. She donated her entire winnings to three nonprofits. Causes close to her heart and objects of earlier contributions.

In a time of so much noise and need, she did something quiet and clear.   It’s a Thanksgiving story, if there ever was one.

But it’s not just about a generous woman in Virginia. It’s also about the rest of us. Because the truth is, most of us have already won a lottery — or several — whether we noticed or not.

Some of us were born in a country where we can speak our minds without jail time. Where the faucet gives drinkable water. Where children go to school without having to dodge bullets or bombs. That’s a kind of lottery.

Some of us were born with lighter skin — and received the unearned privileges that come with it. That, too, is a lottery.

Some were born into books, into college, into connections, into a roof and someone to co-sign the first lease.

These are the quieter lotteries — the ones we didn’t buy a ticket for. And we forget, sometimes, that they happened at all.  But they did.

This Thanksgiving, while we say our thank yous — for food, for family, for freedom — maybe we also name our life’s lottery winnings. Not with guilt, but with clarity. And from that clarity, maybe, like Carrie, we decide to do something out of the ordinary with our good fortune.

Give to something. Stand up for someone. Fight for fairness. Vote like your rights weren’t guaranteed. Organize like someone else’s weren’t.  Because what makes Carrie’s story beautiful isn’t that she won. It’s that she turned her windfall into a rising breeze that might lift others, too.

And here’s one more truth for those of us in the fundraising world:

We’re not just blessed by the lotteries of birth and station — we are blessed with something else, too. We are blessed with Carries. With donors who choose, day after day, year after year, to part with what they could easily keep… and give it to a cause instead. A shelter, a clinic, a movement, a school, a hope.

We do not say thank you nearly enough. Let us say it now. Let us mean it more.  Because every campaign, every envelope, every appeal — it only matters if someone like Carrie says yes.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Roger and Kevin