Car voucher winner Lisa Vigil says helping people is awesome through her donation to United Way of Weld County
Lisa Vigil knows that donating to United Way of Weld County (UWWC) gets results for people in the community. She understands that donating to UWWC is the right thing to do.
“The idea of helping people is awesome,” said Vigil, who was announced as the winner of the UWWC $20,000 annual car voucher on Tuesday (Dec. 22). “I know we can’t always go out and hand all these people on the street corner $1,000 to go do something with themselves, to get housing, to get somewhere to do what they need to do, but with United Way I know that it’s being put to good use. I’m glad to be a part of it.”
For a donation of $156 or more, Vigil and other individual donors had the opportunity to win a $20,000 car voucher toward a vehicle at one of the five car dealerships (Ehrlich Toyota, Ghent Chevrolet Cadillac, Honda of Greeley, Spradley Barr Ford and Weld County Garage) that sponsored the virtual event on Zoom this year. A total of 594 individual donors gave $156 or more this year.
Jeannine Truswell, president and CEO of UWWC, credits the car dealerships and individual donors for coming through year after year for the car voucher drawing.
“Thank you to the car dealers,” Truswell said. “Thank you to the generous individual donors. Without you, our work of helping children, youth, families and older adults in Weld County wouldn’t happen. We may never get to meet the faces of the people who are helped, but it’s thanks to our loyal United Way donors for making this happen.”
Vigil, a patient account representative for Professional Finance Company in Greeley, had a positive feeling about winning a new car. Those feelings came true when Mike Bond, UWWC board member and host of the event, called out her name.
When Bond announced that Vigil was the winner of the $20,000 car voucher, she said she called her whole family. And hours later, her husband still didn’t believe her.
“I was so excited. I called my husband, my kids and my mom and dad and screamed, ‘I won a car!’ ” said the Greeley resident in a telephone interview. “He still doesn’t believe me. He said, ‘I’ll believe it when I see it.’ I had a good feeling about this all along for some strange reason. Maybe because I went from the top 125 to the top 10, I had a good feeling about it. It is an awesome Christmas present.”
Even though Vigil isn’t sure what kind of vehicle she’ll end up with, she now has the fun of shopping for a new set of wheels at one of the five car dealerships. In addition, she’ll also know when she drives her new vehicle out of the car lot, she’ll have helped residents in her community by donating to UWWC.
Other car voucher finalists and what they won:
– Larry Rose (runner-up – 65-inch Samsung TV, sound bar and Fast & Furious movie collection)
– Margaret Priestley (third place – $750 King Soopers fuel card)
– David Fry (fourth place – $250 Greeley Chophouse gift card)
– Jordan Felhofer (fifth place – $125 Best Buy gift card)
– Alan Holmberg (sixth place – $125 Best Buy gift card)
– Tracy Axton (seventh place – $50 VISA gift card)
– Alan Miller (eighth place – $50 VISA gift card)
– Dr. Robert Kahn (ninth place – $50 VISA gift card)
– Stephen Young (10th place – $50 VISA gift card)
