Lucky person wins a 'Dream Home' in annual Sudbury house giveaway

Winner selected for annual Sudbury 'Dream Home' The winner in the annual house draw for Sudbury's Canadian Heard of Hearing Association is announced. Watch Dana Roberts' report.

SUDBURY — One lucky person has a new address after the 19th annual Ultimate Dream Home Draw in Sudbury.

The draw is sponsored by the Canadian Hard of Hearing Association (CHHA) – Sudbury Branch.

"We started off from very humble beginnings as a small, grass-roots organization in Sudbury where we were just a group of people with hearing loss who wanted change," says Kim Scott, executive director of Sudbury’s CHHA. "We saw the lack of services and supports out there for hard of hearing people and we wanted to be able to do something about it."

CTV Northern Ontario’s Will Aiello and Pure Country 91.7’s Brian Cooper made the draw at 2 p.m. Wednesday afternoon and this year’s grand prize goes to Nakita Farmer.

Her new home, built by Belmar Builders, is located near Sudbury’s south-end Walmart. It comes with more than $60,000 in furniture and a new Hyundai Kona.

"Some of these features are a beautiful kitchen," says Tim McDonald of Belmar Builders. "The bathrooms are also a great design. The layout is wonderful. The lighting is also another great thing about this house and even downstairs, the rec room is beautiful as well."

The annual fundraiser brings in much needed money for the local branch of CHHA, which does not receive any government funding.

CHHA offers services including assistance purchasing hearing aids, oral rehabilitation services, an outreach program and various workshops.

The draw is unique in offering tickets for just $20.

Scott says she’s thankful for the community support over the years. The big annual campaign is only possible with the help of over 100 volunteers and says all of the funds raised stay with the local chapter.

"There are a lot of other people out there who couldn’t afford these other tickets that were at the time available at $100 each. And we thought this was something that would appeal to the average person and we thought that it would grow into something that people could really get behind," said Scott. "I could not have imagined this in my wildest dreams. We went from when we first had the idea of doing the house raffle for $20 a ticket, where people thought I was out of my mind and that it would never work, but here we are 19 years later."

The draw also had an ‘Ultimate 50/50 Extra’ raffle. Shelby Patry's name was selected as the winner for an almost $91,000 cash prize.

You can find the full list of the prize winners on the CHHA Sudbury website.

The organization's Sudbury chapter has also recently launched the Hear the North campaign, with a goal of improving accessibility for those with hearing loss.

"We want to make all public places barrier-free to people with hearing loss," Scott says. "We want access because, unfortunately, a lot of the technology out there today helps us out at home. Well, we aren’t hermits. We want to get out there and live our lives to the fullest potential," said Scott.