With her $2 million prize, Yolande Tyler of Fayetteville plans to start her own business aimed at helping the elderly in her community.

“I’m going to try and start my own business,” she said. “I was thinking about doing community van services. There are so many elderly people who need rides and a lot of people don’t have family around.”

Tyler’s good fortune began when she stopped at the Han-Dee Hugo on Carolina Beach Road in Wilmington for a Dr. Pepper and bought a few scratch offs, including a $20 100X The Cash ticket.

Later than evening, Tyler remembered her tickets. “I always scratch the numbers off,” she said. “I never scratch the prize.” On the fourth row of her ticket, she saw a match.

“When I started scratching the prize amount, I saw there was a 2,” Tyler recalled. “And then when I kept scratching I saw an “M”. I said, ‘Oh, this is $2 million!’ I started running through the house, screaming, telling my kids to wake up.”

Tyler claimed her prize Monday at lottery headquarters in Raleigh.

She had the choice of taking an annuity of $100,000 a year for 20 years or a lump sum of $1.2 million. Tyler chose the $1.2 million lump sum and, after required federal and state tax withholdings, took home $849,006.

“We can get our own house,” Tyler told her kids once she realized she had won. “I can pay my car off.”

She also plans to set aside money for each of her children.

Ticket sales from scratch-offs like 100X The Cash make it possible for the lottery to raise more than $725 million per year for education. For details on how $21.9 million raised by the lottery made a difference in Cumberland County last year, visit www.nclottery.com and click on the “Impact” section.