Do People Really Win At PCH? Meet Pepper Bailey!
As everyone knows (or should know!), every day there are lots of people who win at PCH! We give out prizes all the time online, and when they’re big SuperPrizes, the Prize Patrol gets to go out and deliver them in person!
One of these most recent visits was to Paula “Pepper” Bailey of Naples, Florida, who won $10,000! We caught up with Pepper the other day to see how things were going and what her plans were for the money.
We first asked her what it felt like to have the Prize Patrol show up at her house. Her response had us laughing!
“It’s not like you guys are dentists, like people aren’t happy to see you, right? Aside from winning, one of the most amazing things to me was how my 90-year-old mother was able to keep it a secret! I was out of the house when Dave Sayer first showed up, and when I got home, she was able to keep his return a surprise!”
You can watch her winning moment for yourself right here!
[tube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJbM7Yvx038[/tube]
As you can see from the video, her mother looks great for anyone at 90, so we asked Pepper what her secret was:
“I don’t know what her secret is! Good genes, I think. She was telling Dave Sayer that in the late 1960’s, my father would play Publishers Clearing House all the time. He’d always ask us teenagers what magazines we wanted, or whatever. We’d tell him that we thought it was just a scam, but he said it wasn’t!”
After her father passed away, no one in the family was a PCH regular, until very recently!
“So one day I open my computer and I see a PCH email in my inbox! I was just about to delete it when I stopped…thought about my dad, looked up to heaven, started laughing and said ‘Pappa, this is for you!’ And I filled it out!”
We asked her if her friends and family now know that anyone can win at PCH. Here’s what she had to say:
“You made a complete believer of me and my family and friends. Everyone is [playing PCH] now! You know, my husband and I are just hard working average Americans, so we’re able to say that ‘real people really do win this!’ The whole experience has just been wonderful.”
So of course we had to ask – what are you going to do with the money?
“I took the check right to bank! The only new thing I bought was a coffee pot. We just put it in the bank. Our income is seasonal, so [the money’s] there if we need it. Plus, I do volunteer work every June in Brazil, so the money that I won will allow me to do my [volunteer] work without having to worry.”
We’re sure you know that a lot of us at PCH are big pet lovers! We couldn’t end our conversation without asking Pepper about her beautiful dog!
“That’s Pearl! She’s 12 ½ years old. It’s funny you ask about her, because the night before I won I was showing my husband a picture of a dog to adopt on Facebook. And he was like, ‘no way, we’re good with the dog we have!’ So after I won, I called him at work to see when he was coming home [to surprise him]. And he was like, ‘why? Oh no, you got that puppy from Facebook!’ So a couple hours later, he calls me to tell me he’s getting close to home, so I go outside with the balloons and the check to surprise him in the driveway. He pulls up and I say, ‘can you believe this is real?’ And he says, “it’s better than a puppy!’”
One of Pepper’s statements during her winning moment struck us. She said, “[this] happens to other people, nothing like this ever happens to me.” We asked her if her outlook has now changed.
“I’m a fairly optimistic person anyway …but yes, this has shifted my vibe. I guess you could say it ratcheted up my normal optimism! It’s exciting…like at any moment something unexpected could happen!”
Congratulations Pepper, and to all of our winners! And to all of our hopeful winners, enter every chance you get and you could WIN AT PCH!
Matt K.
PCH Creative
P.S. – If you want to see what kind of prizes you could win, make sure you visit the PCHsearch&win blog today to see what we’re giving away!