Meet the winner of the 2020 St. Jude Dream Home Giveaway

TOPEKA, Kan. (KSNT) – Thursday night, a Topeka man’s ticket was drawn to win the third Topeka Dream Home.

“Well Scott, I am really, really excited to tell you that you just won the 2020 Topeka St. Jude Dream Home,” a representative of St. Jude said.

“Oh man, I’ve never won nothing before in my life, not even at a carnival,” the winner Scott Simmons said.

From never winning, to being the winner: that’s what it felt like when Simmons got the call that he won the 2020 St. Jude Dream Home on Thursday night.

“It ain’t soaked in yet. It has not soaked in yet,” Simmons said.

He’s lived in north Topeka all his life and has bought a ticket every year for the dream home.

He said he believes in the work that St. Jude does for sick children and their families.

“I can’t imagine having my own child in that position. I mean that would just be…that’d be tough, real tough. And you can’t ask for a better organization you know,” Simmons said.

Mark Boling of Mark Boling Construction, Inc. built the home and felt the same.

“Why we do it, is to support St. Jude and when we have people like you that are buying tickets…that’s what it’s all about,” Boling said.

The house is a beautiful 4-bedroom, 3-bathroom, 3,200 square foot home in southwest Topeka that has a price tag of nearly $500,000.

Scott plans to live in his new house with his son who is getting ready to go back to grad school online and wants to visit St. Jude sometime soon after the pandemic.

The Dream Home giveaway tickets that were bought raised $700,000 for St. Jude.