It’s true that communities can help brands become commercial powerhouses and money-making machines. But it takes investments of time and money. It must be a steady, strategic, nose-to-the-grindstone approach that rarely happens overnight.

Or not.

This is what makes Sodeta, Spain an anomaly. Because every person in that town of 70 households, except one, recently went from poverty to wealth after winning Spain’s famous Christmas Lottery. It's a great story.

Some won millions, and even the least fortunate hauled in $130,000.

When residents of Sodeta became aware of the win, they went nuts. A woman said she is finally going to a hair stylist, while the hair stylist said she was quitting. Ok so that didn't work out. The news spread quickly to neighboring Barcelona. Numerous car dealers visited the village to offer expensive cars for sale.

Then there’s Costis Mitsotakis.

He was the only person in the village who didn’t buy a ticket. So now he lives as proof that when a community is doing something together, best to jump in while you can before you’re driving your Yugo in a parade behind a bunch of McLarens and Bentleys.

Which won’t happen in Sodeta, where life is now merely filled with more card-playing leisure, and some of the more extravagant purchases have been a patch of land and a sofa. Sounds like this community is going to stay together for some time.