By Karen Gutierrez
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Joyce Branning of Mount Washington learned this week that she just might have some retirement savings, after all.

While she was making a grocery list to accommodate 29 Thanksgiving guests, a Channel 9 reporter was drawing the winner of a new $300,000 home in Florence.

Branning had bought one of the $100 raffle tickets. She couldn't really afford it, but the cause was good: St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. The raffle raised $679,000.

And then ... "Oh my God, it is me!"

"This is my retirement," Branning says. "I am just so blessed."

Branning, 52, is single and cleans houses for a living.

What will happen, she often thought, when she can no longer bend down to scrub?

Email kgutierrez@enquirer.com