Maricopan wins AmTrust’s new hybrid car raffle

Five exclamation points followed the text message Laura White sent her daughter the day she found out about winning a new car.

“After I got the message, I called her back; she was so excited she couldn’t even talk,” said White’s daughter, Kelly.

When White’s husband, Stephen, found about his wife’s good fortune, he said, “You won that freakin’ car!”

The car White won, part of a grand opening promotion by AmTrust Bank, is a 2009 Honda Civic Hybrid.

“We were opening three new branches on the same day and decided we should do something special,” said Doreen Rast, senior regional manager for the bank. That something special was raffling off a car, a year’s worth of groceries and a landscaping package.

To facilitate the awarding of these prizes, raffle boxes were places at the 12 AmTrust locations across the state, and both customers and non-customers were encouraged to enter.

The winners of all three prizes were AmTrust customers, and White, the grand prizewinner, is a Maricopa resident. She and her family have lived in the city for slightly more than a year; previously they were Scottsdale residents.

Currently, White drives a 2000 Toyota Solaris, and her husband drives a Lincoln. “We are selling the Lincoln, and I’m driving the Honda,” Stephen White said. Laura White quickly put that notion to rest, saying she would be the one driving the new car.

Photo by Michael K. Rich