What If Powerball Winner Donated Jackpot To Chicago?
CHICAGO (CBS) -- The jackpot for Wednesday night's Powerball has jumped to $1.5 billion and that has a lot of us dreaming. But hypothetically, what if the winner decided to give all that money to the city of Chicago? How would they want it spent?
CBS 2's Mai Martinez reports the immediate answer she almost always got when she asked people today was "Why would I give any of my money to the city" or a plain old "no."
But when we ask for the sake of our story, what they'd like to see the city spend the money on, the answers were actually quite insightful.
"I have to take care my family," said Deandre Tanner. "Take care my friends, and I have to go on a vacation because it's super cold outside."
When asked what he would like to see the city spend money on if he were to donate the Powerball jackpot to Chicago, Tanner said, "more resources to the schools, more elementary schools to see that we give money to our kids so they can have a better future."
Christina Tribbia would also like to see Chicago schools benefit, but that's not all.
"Teacher salary issues, construction, road issues," she said.
Fixing Chicago's streets makes Andre Taylor's jackpot "to do" list too.
"I don't like the way that all these potholes is here especially out south and out west," he said.
On social media, most people said the city should use the money to deal with school funding and pension issues and given the cold weather, Chicago's homeless were also on the minds of many.
"With all that money, you can build housing. They can have a place to live, and feed them," said Adrienne Rice.
And if after all the city's problems were solved, there was still some money left over Deandre Tanner offered this idea.
"Also build a statue of me downtown," he said.
He says the statue would go right in the 7-11 where he bought his ticket.
As for what the city would use the money for, we reached out to the mayor's office but have not gotten a reply.