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Macon veterinarian this year's St. Jude Dream home winner

Jessica James, winner of St. Jude Dream home sees new home for the first time

KATHLEEN, Ga. — With one lucky draw, the 5-bedroom, 4-bathroom St. Jude Dream Home has a new owner, Jessica James.

"I mean, when you enter a contest like this, you think, 'Oh, there's a chance someone has to win it,' but you don't expect to be the one to win," James says.

The veterinarian has lived in Macon all her life.

She entered the St. Jude's Dream Home Giveaway for several years, mainly to help out the Children's Hospital. This time, she got a call she wasn't expecting.

"My phone kept ringing, and I was ignoring the call because I was working, and when I was finished, I looked at my phone, and I had a text message from St. Jude saying, 'Please call us,' and I knew at that point, something big had happened," she said. 

James says she was shocked, especially after jokingly predicting the win the night before.

"Nobody believed me. One person, I had even told them the night before, teasing, I said, 'I'm going to win that house,' I said, 'You're not going to because you didn't buy a ticket, but I'm going to win that house,' just kidding. So when I called that person, of course, they didn't believe me," James said. 

Right now, she's not sure what she's going to do with the house in Kathleen that's around 3,200 square feet.

"I'll probably sell the house. I haven't made any definitive decisions. I haven't even gotten the paperwork yet, but that's likely what I'll do just because the house is so big and it's so much house just for me," she said.

The tickets and sponsorships from this year's St. Jude Dream Home Giveaway brought in about $775,000 to benefit the hospital.

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