A 61-year-old cook from Paulding County can now enjoy eating out more after scratching her way to a half-million dollar win in the Georgia Lottery.

Joyce Harvey Cunningham of Dallas won a $500,000 top prize playing the instant game called $500,000 Green.

Cunningham said she bought the ticket in the Austell Food Store, 5565 Powder Springs Road, and scratched it in the store. “It seems like a dream,” she said.

Cunningham claimed her prize Tuesday at Georgia Lottery headquarters in Atlanta.

The grandmother of four, who has two adult daughters, plans to buy a new home for herself.

“I’ll help my daughter buy one, too,” she said.

Farther south, Virgil Jenkins, 44, won a $1 million played the instant game Millionaire Jingle Jumbo Bucks in Sylvania. Jenkins bought the ticket on Valentine’s Day after taking his wife, Talondria, out to dinner. He bought his ticket at Ace Stop N Shop, 495 E. Frontage Road in Sylvania.

“I scratched it in the store, and I hollered,” said the father of two. “I shared the news with my wife, and she was thrilled.”

The couple plan to buy a new home.

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