Joanna Gaines Couldn't Choose A Winner For Her $50,000 Giveaway
Last week, Joanna Gaines wrote on Instagram that to celebrate Magnolia's 18th anniversary she would give $50,000 to someone who had a dream business they wanted to open. The winner would be announced on October 22. When October 22 came, she uploaded a second Instagram post to announce what the headline declares. She could not decide a winner.
However, that doesn't mean Gaines has decided to forgo the prize entirely. Rather, she was so torn between two applicants that she decided to give each of them $50,000.
The first is a portable dollhouse company called Play Maysie. Each miniature domestic scene can be collapsed into a briefcase that is small enough for a child to carry. The other is Fresh Houwse Grocery, a community grocery store that brings farmed foods to the food desert of Sunnyside, a neighborhood in Houston, Texas.
"This week has been a powerful reminder that our world is full of big dreams and beautiful intentions," Gaines reflected in her post.
It began in their first house 18 years ago
Every anniversary causes at least some degree of reflection. In the giveaway's original Instagram announcement, Joanna Gaines explained how Chip pushed her to make the leap that would become Magnolia.
What inspired those dreams was the experience Joanna Gaines had as she and Chip fixed-up their first home. "The house was bad. Chip did all the construction, and I remember many nights he was on his hands and knees staining floors or laying tile," she told PopSugar.
However, as she later explained in "The Magnolia Story," the experience of redoing the whole house ultimately inspired her. She showed Chip a yellow pad of ideas, saying that someday she'd like to apply them to a business. "Why not right now?" he asked. After some more encouragement, he convinced her to look for a store that they could remodel like their home. Thus, Magnolia was born. Giving out that $50,000, then, is a way for Gaines to give others that push into pursuing what otherwise could remain idle dreams.