Happy Valley-goose Bay grocery store workers win lottery

With only a few weeks left until he hangs up his butchers’ apron, Jerome Ivany just got a great retirement present.

On Monday, Ivany found out he and nine other current and former employees of the Terrington Co-op in Happy Valley-goose Bay won $6 million in Lotto 6/49.

“Couldn’t ask for a better gift than that,” Ivany told Saltwire Network while on a break from work, not missing a shift after the win. “It’ll make things a bit easier, that’s for sure.”

Ivany has been working at the co-op for 47 years and is retiring on July 3. He has been playing in the same lotto group for more than 20 of those years, and said the biggest prize they had won in the past was about $2,000, so this was quite shocking.

“I woke up yesterday morning with someone banging on my door,” he said. “I figured they needed me to come into work, that someone had called in. I opened the door, and she says to me, ‘Well, you’re going out with a bang. We won! We won the 6/49!’ I didn’t know what to say, after all these years playing.”

Some of the other members of the group are already retired, he said, and a few others are close to retirement, with some younger people mixed in for good measure.

Ivany and his wife, Viola, are moving to central Newfoundland after he retires, where Ivany lived as a child. He said outside of paying off some bills, getting a new vehicle for his wife and perhaps a new ATV, the extra $600,000 doesn’t change their plans at all.

“I’m just glad it finally happened after all this time at it,” he said. “All the others who were in on it too, they needed it. It’ll make life a bit easier for us, for sure.”