Great deal for Connie

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Great deal for Connie

CONNIE Cafarella is one of those Leongatha identities known to most of us.

Proud gran: Connie Cafarella with her grandchildren Elliott and Gemma, who supported her appearance on Deal or No Deal.

Proud gran: Connie Cafarella with her grandchildren Elliott and Gemma, who supported her appearance on Deal or No Deal.

She is a big fan of the popular Channel 7 show Deal or No Deal and her grandson Elliott has been threatening for years to enter her name to go on the show.
“No!” was Connie’s response. “I won’t do that.”
But then she mellowed and said she would if Elliott and his sister Gemma went with her. That didn’t mean they would end up on the show because not all applicants are invited to attend a filming session.
Their big moment came in November last year, but the whole thing collapsed when Elliott was hospitalised for 24 hours with a soccer injury. That was the night before the filming so the family couldn’t go.
Connie, Elliott and Gemma thought that was the end of that. To everyone’s great surprise the call came again early this year.
So, on February 20, the team of three attended a filming session. They had to be at the studio in South Melbourne at 8am and there were hundreds of people there. Very few who attend these sessions are selected to be the contestant and even then not all have their episode go to air. And you don’t receive your winnings unless it does go to air.
Show host Andrew O’Keefe had been to Stromboli, the Mediterranean island where Connie was born, and he was also interested to discuss Elliott’s role in the family’s organic fruit shop Pompello in Seddon.
It was no surprise then that staff of Deal or No Deal said it was a great episode and it would go to air some time in 2013. They couldn’t guarantee when, so the nervous wait began. The family knew how much they had won but were prohibited from telling anyone.
They were out of the studio and in a taxi on the way home by 11am, saying it felt like a blur.
Then a few weeks ago, Elliott received a phone call from Channel 7 saying the episode would be aired on August 13.
This turned out to be a very big day for the family as it was the same one on which Gemma was to be admitted as a lawyer in a formal ceremony at the Supreme Court of Victoria. Meanwhile a favourite uncle had passed away and the funeral was in Geelong in the middle of the same day, turning it in to one of roller coaster emotions for the family.
Having spread the word, Connie and some of her family finally settled nervously down at 5.30pm to watch. Other family members and friends were glued to their own television sets and text and Facebook messages were running hot.
Elliott was wise enough to cut a deal and when the winning cheque for $85,000 arrives and the family gathers for a celebratory dinner, they’ll relive what they agreed was an amazing experience.
Connie wasn’t unlucky either with her correct guess of the $200,000 case netting her $500.

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Posted by on Aug 27 2013. Filed under Community. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

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