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It may not be millions of dollars, but Laurel resident Willis Carter won big in Bottom Dollar Food's "Fill Up With Free Groceries for a Year" sweepstakes, which he said will come in handy as his limited income only allowed him to eat one meal a day.

"I ain't ever won something like this before," he said.

Carter, 71, was presented with 11 gift cards worth $5,200 Saturday at the South Laurel store, at 12675 Laurel Bowie Road.

Each time a Bottom Dollar customer used their membership card while making a purchase from July 23 to Sept. 2, they were entered into the competition. The more customers shopped, the better their chances to win. Out of the 162,000-plus participants, Carter was selected the winner.

Kimberly Blackburn, Bottom Dollar spokeswoman, said that Bottom Dollar estimated the average person spends $100 a week on groceries. She said Carter can use the card at any Food Lion, or their subsidiary Bottom Dollar location –, or give the cards away.

"We're fairly new, so it's something we would have done all along, but the economic times makes us realize it's how important this gift is for our customers," she said.

Carter estimates spending $50 a week on groceries. He said winning the sweepstakes will help him afford more groceries beyond the usual TV dinners and canned vegetables.

Carter said when Food Lion and Bottom Dollar representatives told him he had won, it sounded too good to be true and he had to be convinced his sweepstakes win wasn't a scam.

The award comes as a welcome surprise.

Born near Walterboro, S.C., Carter lost his mother when he was 3. Although he grew up a farmer, he posted such good grades in high school that Emory University presented him with a scholarship to cover 50 percent of tuition costs. But his family still couldn't afford it, and he never attended college.

Instead, Carter moved to Northern Virginia when he was 20 and settled there for the next 40 years. He worked at Griffiths Consumer Oil Company in Cheverly for 31 years, scheduling oil deliveries for houses. A heart attack in 1994 forced him into disability, and he is since retired.

"I'm just relaxing," he said. There's not a whole lot I can get involved in."

He currently receives a pension from Griffiths, and is on social security. He receives one meal three days a week as part of Prince George's County Senior Nutrition Program, but he said he is going to discontinue that.

He moved to Laurel in 1999, and has been shopping at Bottom Dollar since it opened in 2006.

When asked if he'll splurge on expensive items like tenderloin steak, Carter was uncertain.

"I haven't thought about it too deeply," he said "I gotta work on my teeth before I start chewing steak again. I can't get a whole ton of stuff at one time, because my car can't carry it all."

Carter said he will probably give some of the cards to family members.

"My nephew lives in Delaware," he said, "so I'll probably give him some of them."

E-mail Timmy Gelles at tgelles@gazette.net.