Shlomo Rechnitz. The Jewish philanthropist purchased 18,000 lottery tickets for his employees for this week’s Powerball drawing. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

JNS.org – Shlomo Rechnitz, a Jewish philanthropist and owner of the Park Avenue Healthcare and Wellness Center in the city of Pomona near Los Angeles, purchased 18,000 lottery tickets for his employees for this week’s Powerball drawing, which had a jackpot of $1.6 billion.

Each ticket that Rechnitz purchased for his employees came with a card on which he wrote, “We will provide the ticket. You provide the dream.”

“I asked Shlomo what spurred him to do this in the first place…he said, ‘In the new year, everyone wants an extra bit of hope,’ and he wanted to give everyone that bit of hope,” said Rechnitz’s spokesman, Joshua Nass, according to reports.

News of Rechnitz’s deed broke after a nurse from his daycare center thought she was among the Powerball drawing’s winners, from one of the tickets Rechnitz purchased. Her reported win, however, later proved to be a prank by her son.

Three winning tickets have been announced in the Powerball drawing. The winning numbers were 08-27-34-04-19 and Powerball 10. The odds of guessing the correct numbers is 1 in 292 million.