By Geoffrey Wertime, The Packet Group
BORDENTOWN CITY A Robbinsville High School teacher got the surprise of her life recently when comedian Ellen DeGeneres called her to inform her that her family had won a Florida vacation.
Two weekends ago, Jessica Toth, 27, of Spring Street, went to Orlando, Fla., with her husband, Noah, and the couple’s two children, 18-month-old son, Cameron, and 6-month-old daughter, Cassidy.
They enjoyed a free flight south, free passes to Universal Studios and Island of Adventure theme parks and “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” and a free hotel room for three nights.
The trip was the couple’s first vacation since their honeymoon in 2006, and the prize was particularly big for the woman who described herself as “a huge Ellen fan.”
“I started watching when I was pregnant with my son because I was home a lot,” she said.
Now a biology and anatomy teacher at RHS, Ms. Toth keeps up with the show through a digital video recorder when she’s not busy working, taking care of her family or earning a master’s degree in chemistry education on weekends.
She got the news the Wednesday before the trip when she said she had been told the show’s producers were going to call. In January, the producers actually had called her about another contest she entered but didn’t win so she was shocked when Ms. DeGeneres called her from the set of her show.
“They had told me a producer was probably going to call me so I was waiting for a call from a producer, and I was really, really surprised it was Ellen herself,” Ms. Toth said. “I didn’t expect to hear from her maybe her people but I definitely didn’t expect it to be Ellen DeGeneres.”
She said the call incited “a lot of screaming and yelling and running around” in her apartment. She even got so excited she slipped and fell, she admitted.
“I felt like a goofball,” she said.
Ms. Toth said Ms. DeGeneres first asked her if she was from New Jersey, then if she knew Snookie from the MTV show “Jersey Shore.”
“I said no, and I don’t have a hair poof either,” Ms. Toth said, “and then she asked me what I was doing this week. Since I’m a teacher, I’m off on spring break. She said, ‘Oh great, we’re going on spring break in Orlando, how’d you and your family like to join us?’”
Down in Florida, the family got to attend a taping of “The Ellen DeGeneres Show,” and Ms. Toth said while she was disappointed she didn’t get to talk to the host in person, she was happy to get a high-five from her while on the set. The episode she saw live featured performances by the R&B singer Usher and the country band Rascal Flatts, and it aired last week.
Ms. Toth said it was something of a challenge, taking a trip with such young children.
“The travel was rough, I’m not going to lie,” she said. “But we did the Barney shows and went to Dr. Seuss World. We got to look at all the good rollercoasters, but we didn’t get to go on any of them.”
But the opportunity was special for a couple with two young children, especially since Ms. Toth is in graduate school on the weekends and her husband is in the construction business, which has been hit by the weak economy.
“She’s always helping people out,” Ms. Toth said of her benefactor.
gwertime
@centraljersey.com
