Big surprise for mom
$50K prize pack awarded from Canada’s Luckiest Baby contest
A two-year-old girl from Peterborough and her parents won the Canada’s Luckiest Baby contest on Friday, taking home a prize pack worth more than $50,000 that included toys, clothes and RESPs.
Scarlett Hall, 2, and her parents Graeme and Natasha Hall were named grand-prize winners of the contest run by Parent Life Network (PLN), a Toronto-based website.
The unsuspecting family was handed the prize at an event organized Friday evening by PLN at the downtown restaurant Brio Gusto.
Mom Natasha Hall had entered the contest online and she’d received an email from PLN inviting her family to a party – but she didn’t know she’d won.
Friday happened to be her 35th birthday, and she couldn’t believe her luck winning a mountain of toys for her child as well as items such as a new lawn mower, a snowblower and a $20,000 RESP.
“It’s amazing,” she said, tears filling her eyes.
Parent Life Network publishes features about family life for new and expectant parents.
They also run giveaways: Canada’s Luckiest Baby is a contest conducted twice a year. Winners live in cities across the county (the last family was from P.E.I.).
Winners are selected at random in a draw, and PLN takes a crew to the city where they live. They organize a party, invite the winning family and surprise them with a $50,000 prize.
When the Halls were selected as winners, PLN found five other families from Peterborough who’d also entered the contest and invited them to Brio Gusto too.
All six families were told they were finalists; if they didn’t win the $50,000 grand prize, they would go home with a prize pack worth $500 (including a car seat, a leather diaper bag, children’s clothes and books).
When it was time to reveal the grand-prize winner, the six Moms eligible for the prize stood in a semi-circle with a large box in the middle.
When the box was opened, a dozen helium balloons with Natasha printed on them floated out - followed by wild cheers and confetti.
Natasha Hall put her hands to her face in shock when she won.
“It’s amazing, because it’s been such a hard couple of years,” she said later.
Natasha works at Brant Basics office supply store on George St., and her husband Graeme is an apprentice plumber.
Just eight weeks after her daughter’s birth, Natasha’s father suffered an aneurism and died. It wasn’t easy to deal with both grief and post-partum depression at the same time, she said.
But on Friday night – on her birthday – Natasha couldn’t help thinking she won because her father’s spirit was looking out for her.
“I feel like this was a blessing from my Dad,” she said.
NOTE: To learn more about Parent Life Network or to join, visit accounts.parentlifenetwork.com.