RALEIGH – Shenita Massey, a nursing assistant from Mount Holly in Gaston County, plans to help pay for college for her children and her niece after winning $150,000 playing the $150 Grand game. She scratched off her winning ticket while in the parking lot of Will’s Food Store on West Charlotte Avenue in Mount Holly.

“I thought maybe I had won five dollars,” Massey said. “Then I saw those zeroes. I drove straight home and fell to my knees. It’s a blessing.”

Massey, who said she had won $500 previously on a scratch-off ticket, received a check for $102,001 after taxes were withheld.

“Keep the faith, keep believing,” Massey said as she received her winnings. “It really can happen.”

Since the lottery began through June 30 of this year, Gaston County education programs received more than $44.8 million in lottery funds. By law, those funds pay for teachers’ salaries, school construction, need-based college scholarships and prekindergarten programs. Players in Gaston County have won more than $75.4 million in prizes since the lottery’s inception.

To date, the N.C. Education Lottery has raised more than $2.1 billion for these initiatives statewide.