Woman Wins $25K in Sweepstakes Sponsored by PERQ

Gayle Elliott is thrilled to be named the winner of the $25,000 FATWIN Sweepstakes sponsored by PERQ. Elliott of Gladys, Virginia, was presented with a ceremonial check at Schewels Home on March 4. She was randomly selected from a pool of nearly 996,000 people who registered for the sweepstakes in 2019 on websites that leverage PERQ software. The clients, like Schewels, use PERQ to improve the consumer shopping experience online.

Photos by Scott Allen | Matt Schewel of Schewels Home (left) and Zach Naylor-Cook, a client success manager at PERQ (far right), presented Gayle Elliott with the $25K check in Lynchburg, Virginia. Gayle’s daughter Britny Clark joined her to celebrate.  

How Elliott Won

Gayle says she’s been shopping at Schewels for years, buying a swivel chair most recently, and fell in love with a tall table on the store’s website. During her website visit, Gayle clicked on a link to enter the FATWIN sweepstakes and entered her information.

“I got one email and a few phone calls to say I’d won,” Gayle says. “First, I thought this is a scam. Things like this don’t happen to me. I called the store and said that I was getting calls from this lady saying I won this sweepstake. The woman who answered told me to hold and a man got on the phone. When I started to explain why I was calling, he stopped me and said ‘Are you Gayle Elliott? Congratulations, you won!’”

Matt Schewel, director of store operations at Schewels, says this is a great moment for the business. Schewels Home was founded in 1897 and has been owned by the family for five generations. “We’re so excited for Gayle and for our whole company to be part of this life-changing event,” Schewel says.

“I went from thinking this couldn’t be real to ‘this really is real!’” Gayle adds. “I’m very excited and very thankful for this opportunity.”

Plans for the Sweepstakes Money

Gayle says she plans to buy a Zero-Turn lawnmower, a new clothes dryer and the table she had been eyeing on Schewels’ website. “I kicked myself for not getting it,” she says. She expects some of the money to go toward her daughter Britny Clark’s wedding.

Gayle has this advice for anyone asked to enter a sweepstakes when visiting a website. “I can tell you I’ve never won anything like this before, but I kept putting in for them,” she says. “Keep doing it! There is that one chance of winning and it could be you, so just fill it out!”