Teacher Wins $20K, Plans Gift for Students

An Australian teacher who won $20,000 on a game show (with a little help from the sympathetic host) plans to buy a gift for each 8th-grade kid at her school: a new pair of shoes, the Herald Sun reports. As a guest on Millionaire Hot Seat, Bri Dredge was stumped by the question:

• “First published in 1929, is T.S Eliot’s famous work ‘Old Possums Book Of Practical’ what?” A: Birds. B: Cats. C: Advice. D: Poetry.

Host Eddie McGuire, knowing she taught in a struggling suburb of the city of Ballarat, already felt sympathetic: "I know the area she was talking about," he says. "It hit me right in the heartstrings." When Dredge guessed D—a wrong answer—he gave her another chance to get it right, and she did, guessing B. Now, some 200 students at Yuille Park Community College will have shoes for the coming winter, 9 News reports. Dredge's goal: "to give back to a community that gives so much to us," she says. "If you’ve got warm, dry feet, you’re able to learn." (More game show stories.)