Pledge of Allegiance

Dolores Trejo may have moved across town, but she hasn’t forgotten where she came from.

The winner of a $34-million lottery jackpot last year, Trejo has pledged $150,000 toward construction of a new Boys & Girls Club in Oxnard.

She said she allowed the club to publicize her gift as a response to rumors that still occasionally follow her and her boyfriend, Eugene Hernandez.

“I wanted everyone to know that I’m not just thinking of myself,” she said. “I’d like to let people know that I’m not greedy and that I’m still here. This is where I grew up, and money isn’t going to make me leave.”

When she became Ventura County’s biggest lottery winner, calls started to flood newspapers, police departments and lottery offices: Is it true that she illegally used welfare money to buy the ticket? Is it true the 7-Eleven store where she bought it had been shut down? Is it true that the couple engaged in illegal activities and that the lottery had cut off payments?

None of them was true, but the rumors escalated for weeks. Lottery officials said they had never seen anything quite like it, Trejo said in an interview Friday.

“All of it was so painful,” she said. “Maybe it had to do with my being Hispanic, my age, maybe that I wasn’t exactly what you would call well-off. I was the talk of the town for the longest time.”

Trejo and her family lived in a cramped two-bedroom apartment in south Oxnard. Hernandez, her longtime boyfriend, ran a small landscaping business.

Today, they live in a spacious north Oxnard home. Hernandez no longer mows lawns. Trejo receives an annual check for $1.2 million, after taxes. She keeps track of her investments, but she also pours herself into playing second base on a local softball team.

“I spend a lot of time with my kids,” she said. “My boyfriend manages a T-ball team, and we’re in the parks all the time.”

Trejo’s donation will help build a $2.1-million Boys & Girls Club activity center at the site of a proposed city park near 5th Street and Ventura Road. About $1.25 million has been raised for the project, which will help children in the underserved midtown part of the city, said club spokesman Bob Burk.

The club has seven locations in Oxnard and Port Hueneme.

At the new youth center, the game room will bear a plaque with the names of Trejo and her kids: Janice, 8; Eugene, 7; Jacob, 3; and 8-month-old Tony.

“I played all the sports, especially basketball, and went to the club almost every day after school,” Trejo said. “Now that my kids are growing up, it’ll be someplace for them to go besides the street. It’ll be better for them and for a lot of other kids, too.”

Trejo said she has also contributed to several other local groups, including Catholic Charities.