Rory Bellamy $1 Million PCH Winner – Worth the Wait!
Hi PCH fans! I’m Danielle Lam of the Publishers Clearing House Prize Patrol Elite Team – the one that awards those BIG checks to lucky PCH winners. The most commonly asked question I get from PCH fans is: “what happens if the winner isn’t home when the Prize Patrol arrives to award the prize?” Well, this is exactly what happened to the Prize Patrol when we went to Cleveland, Ohio to award Rory Bellamy a BIG check for $1 Million on November 30th 2012!
The morning of award day couldn’t have run more smoothly. The Prize Patrol arrived at the florist location early to get the Prize Patrol balloons filled, purchase celebratory champagne and pick up the 2 dozen red roses. By the time we had all of the Prize Patrol icons ready to go, we had every local media TV station there to participate in the big surprise – how exciting! Right on time at 10:30 AM we left the florist to go surprise our winner, with a trail of local media following us.
On the way to Rory’s home I remember saying to Dave Sayer and Todd Sloane, “this is one of the smoothest running Prize Patrol’s I’ve ever done!” Uh oh, did I jinx it? Soon after we realized that Rory was NOT home!!! So, what does the Prize Patrol do next?
Plan B: Knock on the neighbor’s doors for help. Luckily, one of Rory’s neighbors was watching as the Prize Patrol van pulled up and offered to help. The Prize Patrol soon learned that Rory was out for the day working (he’s a house painter) and wouldn’t be returning until 3:00 PM the earliest! Uh oh! What next?
Plan C: Wait! The Prize Patrol would never just leave, we will do everything in our power to surprise a PCH winner and give them the well known “winning moment” they deserve! So, we waited….and waited….and waited!
After waiting for 5 hours, we got a lead! A family member of Rory’s lived across the street and arrived home at 3:30 PM! Luckily, she had his cell phone number and was able to contact him and tell him to come home ASAP because she needed him to see something that was going on with his house. Without asking questions, he was on his way home – YAY!
After 6 hours of waiting, Rory finally arrived home…and boy was he worth the wait! Rory exclaimed “Is this, is this what I think it is? Is this really happening to me, I can’t believe this!” We learned that Rory was laid off two years ago and is so excited to finally have the money to pay for health insurance and a trip to visit his brothers and sisters in Florida. Rory got to share his exciting PCH winning moment with his family members and friends who came over to join in the celebration: his neighbors, his sister, his brother-in-law and his cousin who recently arrived home from serving in Afghanistan!
Well, I hope you enjoyed hearing about this amazing PCH winning moment and now see that the Prize Patrol does whatever it can to surprise our winners, even if they aren’t home when we first arrive! Now would YOU like to be the next person in one of these PCH winning moment videos? All you need to do is enter for your chance to win at www.pch.com! Good luck everyone!!
Danielle Lam
PCH Prize Patrol Elite
