After a difficult few months, Joe Camp of Charlotte hit a stroke of good luck to the tune of a $250,000 lottery prize.

“I just recently got employed at a car dealership auto sales center,” said Camp. “I was a teacher for 20 years, a preschool teacher, and I got laid off on Sept. 6. A month after that, my dad passed away. And it put me in a dark place. But I have a lot of friends and family that just told me to keep sticking in there, keep believing in myself.”

Camp purchased his winning $250,000 Gold Rush ticket from the Coulwood BP on Belhaven Boulevard in Charlotte.

“Thursday morning, I went to the store and bought a scratch-off ticket like I usually do,” said Camp. “And I bought two tickets. I didn’t win on the first one, so I tried the second and I scratched it off, and I fell to my knees at the gas pump.”

Camp claimed his prize Monday at lottery headquarters in Raleigh. After required federal and state tax withholdings, he took home $176,876.

“What I plan on doing with my winnings is having a future for my daughter,” he said. His plans include a new home for himself and his daughter and saving for her education.

“I want to get a home because I want to set it up for my family, my grandkids,” he added. “I want to have something for us. I never had anything, no one passed anything down, and that’s what I want to do.”

Ticket sales from scratch-offs make it possible for the lottery to raise more than $725 million per year for education. For details on how lottery funds have helped all of North Carolina’s 100 counties, click on the “Impact” section of the lottery’s website.