WEST FARGO (AP) - Talk show host Oprah Winfrey's latest prize giveaway brought some much-needed help here to schoolchildren and an African family with a harrowing past.

Winfrey presented $1,000 debit cards to more than 300 audience members during a recent show, to give away to others. Amy Holstad, of Fargo, and her mother, Jayne Petersen, of West Fargo, were in the crowd.

Holstad and Petersen decided to give half of their collective $2,000 to children and the other half to a deserving family.

"We could have given one lump sum to one organization, but we thought this would be a little more fun," Holstad said.

They chose Victoria Gowah's family in West Fargo.

Gowah's life changed when war struck her native Liberia in 1990. After her husband was killed, she and her seven children walked from town to town to escape the violence. After her brother went missing, she also was left to raise her four young nephews.

The family lived in a refugee camp in the Ivory Coast before coming to West Fargo in 2004.

Gowah is raising two daughters and four nephews in a three-bedroom apartment, supporting the family on $7.60 per hour. Holstad and Petersen took the family on a shopping spree over the weekend. Wal-Mart added an extra $50.

"I'm very happy. I'm very happy," said Gowah, who struggles with her English.

Holstad and Petersen set aside $800 of their money for milk and juice for needy first- and second-graders at a local elementary school, and the rest for a lunch account for needy students at a middle school.

Petersen said it was an experience she and her daughter will never forget.

"It was wonderful, just being able to give to people that need it," she said.