There are a few lucky lotter winners in the past decades. These fortunate folks have done so much with their prize money. Some have chosen to invest it while others bought their dream cars and homes. It’s their money and no one has the right to dictate what they spend this on.
Then, there are those who have been blessed with a charitable heart. These people are a rare find. Oftentimes, you always think of yourself before others, and that has been part of human nature since the beginning of time, which is why this anonymous man is considered a gem.
A total of €200,000,000. This staggering amount could practically get you anything you want – cars, houses, vacations, jewelry. Name it, and you can get your hands on it immediately. This is also the amount an anonymous Frenchman won in the EuroMillions jackpot lottery just previously. While he did keep some of it, the larger portion of the winnings went towards the preservation of a tropical rainforest in West Africa, which are the forests in his native country.
The lucky winner decided to establish the Anyama Endowment Fund. The said fund was named after a town in Côte d’Ivoire. Many have said and assumed and this was where he had spent much of his life. Most of his winnings will go for “the protection and revitalization of forests, the preservation and regeneration of biodiversity and the support of family caregivers.”
“I only played during large jackpots, for one purpose: to devote most of this sum to the creation of a foundation,” the anonymous man wrote in an open letter on the Fund’s website. “During my life, I have witnessed in Côte d’Ivoire the incessant passage of trucks loaded with trees cut in the forests of Burkina Faso,” he also told Le Parisien.
“We have never seen an initiative of this size, but there again, we have rarely seen such high winnings,” said an operator of the French National Lottery. “Often, these things go hand-in-hand,” he added.
When it came to the lottery’s history, this was said to be the second-largest jackpot. No one really knows who the winner is, but what they know is that he is a retiree living in the south of France. His main goal was to spread the message that people can help preserve the natural environment if they wanted to – and more importantly, that giving makes one more happy than having.
“Above all, it is the expression of a conviction that I want to share with as many people as possible: giving makes people happy, and constitutes a tremendous lever for transforming indignation into concrete and useful actions,” the man said, according to Euro News.
Ivory Coast has inspired the foundation’s purpose, although Anyama’s efforts will hone in on France, both in the mainland and overseas territories.
“During my life, I have witnessed in Ivory Coast the incessant passage of trucks loaded with cut trees in the forests of Burkina Faso, formerly Upper Volta. This ballet of trucks marked me a lot, indignant,” the man wrote in the statement published on the foundation’s website.
While the team who had been working on foundation is well documented on the official website, no one still knows who the founder is. It remains to be a mystery even to this day. As for the anonymous winner, he told French newspaper Le Parisien that his plan is to continue to live “peacefully” and as discreetly as possible.
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True Activist / Report a typo
