Congratulations to our first-ever Sinai 50/50 lottery winner: Sean Hannon!

Jan. 6, 2020

Sean Hannon was on the bus when he got a call with surprisingly good news.

Just three days before the first-ever draw of Sinai Health Foundation’s new Sinai 50/50 lottery, Sean remembered he wanted to buy a few tickets to support Sinai Health’s latest initiative. With tickets as low as $10, it felt like a manageable way to show his support. He never expected to win.

But win he did. After an hour of phone tag, a call from Foundation CEO Louis de Melo that reached Sean while he was communting home on the bus, confirmed it.

“I was trying to be kind of quiet, because I was on the bus,” Sean recalls. “And I didn’t totally believe it yet. It takes a while to sink in. It’s surreal!”

His wife didn’t believe him at first either, until he showed her the matching numbers on his ticket and the Sinai 50/50 website. His kids were easier to convince — they thought it was pretty cool.

Sean’s family put the money toward paying off the recent renovations they’d made to their family home in Leaside. Those renovation bills are now gone and Sean and his wife are grateful for the peace of mind that knowledge brings.

Still, Sean says he didn’t buy his Sinai 50/50 tickets with any real hope of winning. He just wanted to give back to Sinai Health. After all, Sean has long been a member of the Sinai Health family, first as an employee at Bridgepoint Active Healthcare for 12 years, and now as a project manager on the ambitious, philanthropy-driven Renew Sinai Phase 3a project that is revitalizing Mount Sinai Hospital’s clinical and support spaces and infrastructure.

Through his work on the Renew Sinai project, he says he’s gained new insight and appreciation for the critical role donors play in the organization.

“In my role, I have a front-row seat to the impact that donor support has. I see the gap between what the government funds and what the real costs are. Donors are the ones filling those gaps, and I wanted to be part of that.”