  Easton dad wins $100,000 tuition rafflePosted on May 21, 2009
Easton resident Thomas McCauley is still in shock after winning the $100,000 tuition raffle drawing on the evening of May 14, but says that when he looks at the big check in his house, he knows it’s real. Mr. McCauley, brother of Jacqueline McCauley Ford, ’87, said that the moment was very surreal. “I was completely taken back. I was in total shock and could not believe that I had won. I kept hearing my address being called out and did not process that they were calling me because I had won. It took awhile for it to sink in. I almost did not buy a ticket, but am sure glad that I did.” “I always said that this is a very interesting raffle where you have the once-in-a-lifetime chance to win something that can change your family's life,” Mr. McCauley said. When Tom McCauley’s daughter, Caroline, an incoming freshman at Lauralton, saw him holding the life-size check, her first words were, “Get out…you won…you really, really won?” Tom said “we were both in shock but were very, very happy!” The prize is very important to Tom and his wife, Suzanne. “This means that if our children desire to attend private high schools, we will be more easily able to support that goal financially as well as continue to supplement college saving plans,” said Mr. McCauley. “It will have a huge impact on our lives,” Mr. McCauley said of his four children: Thomas, Jr., a sophomore at Fairfield Prep; Caroline, an 8th grader at Heller Keller Middle School in Easton who will be entering Lauralton in the fall; Kenneth, a 4th grader at Samuel Staples Elementary School in Easton; and Matthew, a 2nd grader at Samuel Staples. The McCauley family, parishoners of Notre Dame Church in Easton, says that this tuition money “will also be a big relief to us. We often struggle to figure out how to be able to pay for both private Catholic high schools as well as save for the impending college tuitions.” Mr. and Mrs. McCauley are still figuring out how to best utilize the money for their children’s educational goals, and will most likely be using it for two of their children…probably for a combination of both high school and college. |