Fredrick Richardson of Knightdale said he plans to use part of a $250,000 lottery prize to make his dream of getting married come true.

“My girlfriend and I have wanted to get married for a while,” Richardson said. “It just got pushed to the back burner since we didn’t have the funds. But now we finally can.”

The cook’s good fortune happened Saturday when he stopped at the Shop N Go on N.C. 39 in Zebulon and bought a Hit $500 scratch-off ticket.

“I saw that I had a match,” Richardson said. “I thought I’d probably won $5 or $50, but then I finished scratching. I started crying and thinking, ‘Is this for real?’ When I showed my girlfriend, she started crying and the first thing she said was, ‘We can finally get married.’”

He claimed his prize Monday at lottery headquarters in Raleigh. After required state and federal tax withholdings, he took home $176,249. Richardson also plans to get a new Chevy Equinox.

The $5 ticket launched earlier this month with six top prizes of $250,000. Four top prizes remain.

Ticket sales from games like Hit $500 make it possible for the lottery to raise more than $600 million a year for education. For details on how over $57.1 million raised by the lottery supported education programs in Wake County last year, click on the “Impact” section of the lottery’s website, https://www.nclottery.com.