If she wanted to,
23-year-old Sophie Poindexter could buy 93,000 scoops of ice cream from
the UDairy Creamery or 37,000 wall pennants from the University of
Delaware Bookstore.
This is because, on Monday, July 19, the UD alumna became $302,000 richer.
“It is surreal,” she said.
Poindexter, a graphic designer, is the grand prize winner of the DE Wins!
inoculation incentive program. When she received her Moderna vaccine
for COVID-19 in March, she was automatically entered into a state-wide
lottery drawing. This week, at Wilmington’s Bardea restaurant, Delaware
Gov. John Carney, who received his master of arts in public administration from UD, presented the check.
“I did not even know about this initiative at the time,” said Poindexter, who graduated with a degree in visual communications in May. “I just wanted to protect not only myself, but the people around me.”
Among those in her orbit? Poindexter’s mother, Flora, who teaches
French at the University; her brother, Remi, who graduated from UD in
2012; and all of her customers at Caffé Gelato on Newark’s Main Street,
where she was doing social media work at the time.
Poindexter partly credits this desire to protect her community with her
time on campus, which she said “definitely helped me grow as a person in
this way.” She specifically recalled the family-like feel of the Department of Art and Design, and how the Blue Hens here supported each other during the pandemic.