WMBFNews.com | Myrtle Beach/Florence, SC | News, Weather, SportsPoker winnings will go straight to church building fund

Poker winnings will go straight to church building fund

By Brandon Herring - bio | email

GARDEN CITY, SC (WMBF) - Father Andrew Trapp stole the spotlight in his television debut. He's a priest at Saint Michael's Catholic Church in Garden City, and Sunday night, he appeared in a nationally televised poker contest where he won $100,000.

Trapp says he'll donate his winnings to his parish to help build a new church building.

"Hopefully within the next couple of years we'll have a beautiful new church at St. Michael's," Trapp said.

He's donating all his winnings from the game show to St. Michael's campaign to raise more than $5 million for the building fund.

Trapp entered the contest in hopes of showing people there are young priests with normal hobbies. Almost as an afterthought, he realized he may actually be selected for the show and win some money. So he decided to donate any winnings to his parish's building fund.

"I figured if I could actually go all the way and win a million dollars, we'd be almost all the way to what we needed," he said.

Trapp will compete for a million dollars when he appears on the game show again in December. So far, the parish has raised about $3.5 million for construction. Trapp says winning the competition would be a big boost toward starting construction.

Parishioners say the construction is certainly needed.

"The church is always, always, always packed," commented parishioner Virginia Fazio. "I don't think I've ever seen a church make such use out of folding chairs."

Not only does the parish need a bigger building, they say they need one that's better built. The current one was built as a semi-permanent structure to last about 10 to 15 years. It doesn't meet updated building codes to withstand hurricanes either.

"We're going to have a beautiful church that really looks like a place of worship of God," Trapp explained. "It'll be big enough to hold all the people we have in the tourist season and the winter months, and big enough for our future growth."

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