South Kitsap family heading to Disney World
Published 6:02 am Saturday, April 26, 2008
A South Kitsap family that was in the running to win a paid vacation courtesy of the Disney Corp. and ABC’s “Good Morning America” learned last week it had been chosen for the grand prize.
“I’m in shock — tonight I’m going to be screaming in my pillow,” said Sarah Acoba when the television crews arrived at her home to deliver the good news.
Acoba, a 26-year-old South Kitsap resident who took over parenting her younger brother Zach, 15, when their mother died last year, said she applied to the contest that offered a deserving family the “vacation of a lifetime” earlier this year on a whim.
“I never thought of doing anything like that before; I just thought it would be a huge reward for my family,” she said. “We’ve been through so much, and stuck together.”
After Acoba wrote a letter to GMA producers describing her family situation, which included dramatic changes like her mother being diagnosed with and later dying of liver cancer and Acoba marrying her boyfriend Jeff and the couple taking over care of Zach, the family of three soon became on of three finalists in the contest.
To choose the winner, the public was invited to view each finalist’s video and vote on the GMA Web site up until Nov. 27. And once her friends and family learned each person could vote as many times as they wanted — as long as they used a different computer each time — Acoba said she had a loyal group that began logging into every computer they could find at home, work and even the local library.
But plenty of strangers voted for them, too, and father-in-law Lee Acoba said he knew Sarah and his son had a good chance of winning the vacation when he saw the comments left by people across the country who saw their story on the contest Web site.
“I thought they had a really strong chance, and we were keeping our fingers crossed,” said the elder Acoba, also a South Kitsap resident. “We were sitting on pins and needles until they called and said they won.”
Acoba said the family is preparing to enjoy their “Paradise Vacation” — a $60,000 package that includes a Disney cruise, visit to Disneyworld and a day to have Disney’s private island in the Caribbean to themselves — some time in February.
“It’s time for us to make some good memories together,” said Sarah Acoba before she won, adding that the trip would not only give all three of them some quality time together, but she and Jeff the honeymoon they couldn’t take last year.
