Emily Brown
A teenager from Oklahoma became the proud new owner of a car from an unlikely source as she won it by attending the funeral of a stranger.
Makes a change from shopping malls or Instagram competitions, doesn't it?
Gabriella Bonham, from El Reno, Oklahoma, won the Volkswagen Beetle after she attended the funeral of Diane Sweeney, from Oklahoma City.
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Sweeney passed away suddenly on 7 July, 2022, but just weeks earlier she'd been chatting to her family members about a wish she had for when she died.
"I remember it clear as day," her nephew Rick Ingram told Fox News. "She said, ‘Whoever comes to my funeral, I want them to have a chance to win my Volkswagen Beetle.’ And I said, ‘Oh, Diane, I'll make that happen.’"
Sweeney passed away just 30 days later, so Ingram and his cousin, Suzanne Singleterry, decided to make sure she got her last wish.
The two family members put a notice in the local paper to say that whoever came to Sweeney's funeral had the chance to become the new owner of her Volkswagen Beetle.
Sweeney was not married and did not have any children.
"Her wish is that whoever comes to the funeral — and she didn't care if they knew her or not, or their age, race — would have a chance to win her car," Ingram said.
"Channel 4 picked it up and asked if they could do a news story [about it]. I said, ‘Absolutely. It'll pack the funeral home' — which it did."
Gabriella, who is just 16 years old, saw the announcement on TV, telling Fox: "We kind of just laughed it off because we were like, ‘That would be so funny to go to'."
But despite initially finding the giveaway funny, Gabriella and some of her family members actually decided it would be nice to attend.
While at the funeral. Gabriella learned about Sweeney and how she was a 'generous person'.
The teen filled out her information for the raffle to be in with a chance of winning the car, but she didn't hear anything for more than a year.
In that time, Sweeney's family had been settling her estate, which had to be done before they could announce the winner of the raffle.
They finally drew the name on 15 September, and Gabriella got the phone call to say she'd won.
"I wasn't expecting it at all," the teen admitted. "I was just in a hotel room with my family because we were currently on a trip. They just told me and I was standing in the middle of the room, just so shocked.
"My parents were trying to guess what it was. They were like, ‘What happened? Are you OK? Who is it?’ After I got off the phone, we all got excited and called all of our family members who knew that I went to the funeral."
Ingram described Gabriella as the 'perfect winner', saying the teen was 'very grateful' for the prize.
"Diane would have been thrilled with everyone that attended the funeral," Ingram said.
"She was always thinking of others, even after her death, which is one of her many legacies. And now [Gabriella] starts her life in the spirit of Diane."