Lotto winner pledges to fund classrooms in his native Mali

Authored by upi.com and submitted by Sariel007

Souleymane Sana, a Malian who relocated to North Carolina, said he will use his lottery winnings to help kids back in his home country. Photo courtesy of the North Carolina Education Lottery

Subscribe | UPI Odd Newsletter Subscribe May 22 (UPI) -- Happiness for one lucky North Carolina resident comes not from newfound wealth from a lottery win, but using those winnings to help schoolchildren -- in this case, from Mali. Souleymane Sana of North Carolina won $100,000 from a scratch-off ticket. Relocating to the United States from Mali -- a war-torn county on the coast of West Africa -- Sana is using his earnings to create a non-profit to help school kids from his hometown. Advertisement

"I'm going to keep doing my best to help build more classrooms for the children in Mali," he said. "That is the thing that makes me really happy."

Sana, 39, works as a dance instructor. His dream is to set up a dance school in Mali, adding his motivation for playing the lottery was to help others achieve their own dreams.

"I love to dance and I want to teach the children in Mali to love it, too," he said. "If you talk about culture and you talk about education, they both go together. Some of the money is going to be used to start building a dance center there."

Scratch-off tickets in the North Carolina lottery fund education to the tune $2.5 million a day.

pinguaina on May 22nd, 2023 at 19:16 UTC »

Sad that a regular person has to step in to save the day while rich people don’t care at all.

Postalsock on May 22nd, 2023 at 19:09 UTC »

He only won 100k, which is nice for a person to have, but after taxes it will be closer to 70k and then he wants to use that money for a whole nation schools that even if it's so poor might get a day for every school there, instead of just focusing on one school which he might be able to pay for maybe even a year

MyAccountWasBanned7 on May 22nd, 2023 at 17:37 UTC »

Not really uplifting that a private citizen has to win the lotto and then give up the money in order to keep a school running, but I guess it's good that the kids will get a proper education.