Dennis Mitchell has year in and year out donated a $100 to the New Orleans St. Jude Dream Home Giveaway.

He never did it hoping to win anything. Why would he? What are the chances?

Mitchell, 61, told me he has participated in the fundraiser for approximately 15 years because he knows the money goes to children and the research of childhood diseases.

Each participant donates $100, joining a raffle to win a beautiful new home.

That money helps fund St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, which boasts the world’s best survival rates for the most aggressive childhood cancers. Treatments invented at St. Jude have helped push the overall childhood cancer survival rate from 20 to 80 percent since it opened more than 50 years ago.

It’s that record of success that made Mitchell’s decision to donate so easy. It had nothing to do with believing he would one day win the Giveaway.

Well, that “one day” came a couple of weeks ago as Mitchell’s name was pulled, unlocking the door to a single-family home in New Orleans’ Lakeview neighborhood estimated at $650,000.

The home is approximately 3,200 square feet and includes four bedrooms, three bathrooms, a luxurious outdoor courtyard and a custom, freestanding spiral staircase.

Mitchell still seemed in shock last week when I spoke with him about the big win. The retired technician from Monsanto and native of Lucy said he had just come in from doing some yard work at his Luling home when the fateful phone call was made.

“When I received the call, I thought it was somebody who was pranking me or joking with me — that is what I thought it was,” Mitchell said. “It was in the evening. I was being lazy, lying around. I just came from outside doing some yard work and next thing I knew, my wife said ‘the people from the TV station are calling.’

“I said, ‘well, pick it up.’ When I started talking with them, I said, ‘this ain’t a joke.’ I was like ‘wow.’ Everything hit me then.”

It certainly wasn’t a joke.

Mitchell and his wife were the lucky winners, which was especially interesting because the couple normally tours the home offered in the giveaway each year. They even made a trip to Lafayette one year to see one of the marketed homes.

Not this year. Mitchell told me they actually never got out to the 2015 edition before the drawing.

Naturally, that has changed for Mitchell, who said last week he and his wife plan to move into the new home when all the legal hurdles are completed.

“It’s beautiful,” he said. “It’s really beautiful.”

I imagine it’s tough to put into words what it’s like winning such an amazing prize. I asked Mitchell if he thought it was case of “good things happening to good people.” As a testament to his character, he certainly said this wasn’t something he deserved just because he had donated for more than a decade. He just thought he was lucky, the beneficiary of a wonderful break that came because of a great cause.

“I guess I’m a good person,” he said. “I always felt that I stayed positive with certain things through all my years. It was just my turn, I guess.”

Luck certainly had something to do with it. But the true winners are those who benefit from all the positive things done by those associated with St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

Thanks to Mitchell’s donation of more than $1,000 over the past decade, St. Jude will continue striving to find the answers to save every child with pediatric cancer or other life-threatening diseases through its lifesaving research.

For the past 25 years, St. Jude has given away more than 370 houses and raised more than $300 million through numerous Dream Home Giveaway campaigns, the largest single-event fundraiser for the hospital.

Organizers said it is because of programs like this that families never receive a bill from St. Jude for treatment, travel, housing or food, so they can focus on helping their child live.

Now, those are the true winners. I’m just glad someone from the River Parishes was a lucky winner in the process.

Stephen Hemelt is publisher and editor of L’OBSERVATEUR. He can be reached at 985-652-9545 or stephen.hemelt@lobservateur.com.