Tuesday, April 1, 2014

Canadian Lottery Winner Remains Committed to Good Causes

Canadian lottery winner Tom Crist is still busy giving away his winnings to good causes, but admits the amount of requests he receives is beginning to take a toll.

"It's very tough, I feel bad," Crist said. "I had to quit reading the letters that I got . . . they were bringing up memories that I went through so it was really tough for me to read them."

Crist won the Canada Lotto Max Jackpot in May 2013, and vowed to give away the entire C$40 million to charity. One of his first donations was to charity trust he established in memory of his wife, Janice, who died of cancer in 2011.

"You feel good when you can do something, when you can help a family out that needs help, financial help," Crist said. "You can't help the whole world, but we are going to help as many people as we can."

Crist has already donated generous amounts of money to cancer sufferers, and gave C$1.2 million to the Tom Baker Cancer Centre—a place of particular importance to Crist because they cared for his wife before her death.

More recently, Crist invested several million dollars in Kidoodle TV—an online TV portal that provides children with safe entertainment in an environment parents can control. 

Any returns on his investment will also be funneled into his charitable foundation and he already has a meeting scheduled with the Alberta Cancer Board, later this month, to discuss where the next donation will go.