A tiny school in a poor farming community in Nuevo León was one of the lucky winners of 20 million pesos (US $950,000) in the “presidential plane” raffle, drawn in Mexico City on Tuesday.

Located in El Yerbaniz, a community in the northern state’s mountainous southeast, the Gustavo Díaz Ordaz school was gifted eight tickets in the raffle by Grupo Vidanta, a real estate conglomerate.

The National Lottery printed 6 million tickets for the raffle, in which 100 20-million-peso prizes were up for grabs.

Along with several hospitals and other educational facilities, the school in El Yerbaniz held one of the winning tickets.

According to the newspaper Milenio, residents of the community have just completed the construction of two classrooms at the school. Prior to their completion, seven preschool students and five primary school students all studied together in a 65-year-old dilapidated hut.

Now, the school is expected to be upgraded further and there will likely be money left over to make improvements to the community, home to 60 residents from 16 families whose main economic activity is growing corn and beans.

Almost no one in the town has a television or running water, Milenio said.

Azucena Reyna, a fifth grade student, said she was happy because extra amenities will be added to her school and “it’s going to very beautiful.”

Nuevo León Governor Jaime Rodríguez congratulated the school for its win and said he would provide advice to educational and municipal authorities about how to use the money only if they asked him to do so.

Three schools in indigenous communities in mountainous regions of Puebla also won 20-million-peso prizes in the raffle as did three telesecundarias, or distance education schools, two in marginalized areas of Veracruz and one in Oaxaca. The schools in Puebla were gifted their tickets by the federal Welfare Ministry.

Among the other winners were hospitals in Zacatecas, Michoacán, México state, Veracruz, Tamaulipas, Sinaloa and Morelos.

Revenue raised by the raffle, whose total prize pool is roughly equivalent to the unwanted presidential plane, will be used to purchase medical equipment for hospitals.

Source: Milenio (sp)