It may be the feel-good lottery win of all time: a single mom who can now help her kids, and a father of three who proved lottery lightning can strike twice.
When Sharon Mentore grabbed her cheque for $10.5 million yesterday, the single mother of three couldn't restrain her joy.
Smiling broadly, she began to dance and tell of her plans.
She's told her father he no longer needs to report for his factory job: She's sending him on a trip to his native Guyana.
"I'm one of those people who likes helping others. I've always been like that."
Mentore will set aside money to educate two sons, aged 5 and 3, and a daughter, 19 months.
Her mother, three sisters and brother will also share in her good fortune as well as the two women who have been sharing Mentore's $730-per-month apartment.
Raised in Markham, Mentore moved to Hamilton two years ago for lower rent.
She says the father of her children essentially abandoned them, with neither emotional or financial support. "I've been doing it (the parenting) myself."
That's why the 26-year-old seized the chance to send him a message yesterday, wherever he may be: "Don't come looking for me now."
In an amazing twist, she will split last Friday's Super 7 prize with Milton's Maurice Daviau, who hit his second lottery jackpot in three years.
In 2001, Daviau, 45, shared an $11.7 million windfall with 76 other employees of the Maplehurst Correctional Centre $151,000 for himself.
This time, he has to share the $10,569,509.10 he won only with wife Monica Milton. Still, aside from test-driving a Hummer, the landscaper and father of three doesn't cherish any grand plans for his grand slam.
"It's incredible, unbelievable," Daviau said.
He learned Saturday night that he'd struck it rich, and hasn't slept since.
Daviau figured he'd scored a freebie ticket when the lottery validation machine began playing the winners' tune.
He didn't get too excited when the clerk told him she couldn't pay out his prize. But when she said she couldn't read that many numbers, Daviau looked at the ticket himself, "and my knees went weak and I had to sit down."
Mentore's resume spans a litany of odd jobs. She hasn't even passed her probationary period as a personal support worker at a facility for elderly and disabled people. She doesn't plan to give it up. She will also be looking for a house where she and the kids can have their own bedrooms. And she's cancelled plans to buy a 1992 Chevy Cavalier.
The Daviaus plan to pack in their jobs.
But it will be tough, said letter carrier Monica, 43.
There's one thing Maurice won't give up: plowing driveways for friends and customers.
He used to do it gratis but started charging when he opened the landscape business, he said.
Is the lottery winner still legally married to the deadbeat Dad? Hope not for her sake!