AITA for returning a workplace raffle prize after being told I should give it to a new parent?

My office held a charity raffle at the end of a volunteer week. Employees earned one entry for each shift they worked. I did three shifts and put all my entries into the drawing for a $300 grocery gift card.

I won.

The person handing out prizes, Sheila, smiled and said, “That will go far for Melissa with the new baby.”

Melissa is another employee who returned from parental leave recently. I thought Sheila was joking, so I laughed. She explained that several people had assumed the winner would donate the grocery card to Melissa because the company gift basket for her had been smaller than planned.

Nobody had mentioned that before the raffle.

I said I intended to keep the card. Groceries are expensive for me too, and I had chosen that prize instead of the restaurant vouchers because it was useful. The room became painfully quiet.

Melissa was not present. Sheila said nobody could force me, but “community spirit” was the point of volunteer week. I asked whether every prize came with an intended recipient. She said no, this one just felt especially appropriate.

I took the card back to my desk. For the rest of the afternoon I could hear fragments of conversation about generosity and technicalities. By five, I was so uncomfortable that I returned the card to HR and asked them to draw another name.

HR did not redraw. They added the card to a general employee assistance fund. Sheila later told coworkers that I had “donated it after all.” That bothered me because I had not donated it to Melissa; I had surrendered it to end a public argument.

I emailed HR clarifying that I did not authorize my name to be used in any announcement. I also asked for my three raffle entries to be moved to a different prize. They said the drawing was over and entries could not be restored.

Melissa eventually heard the story and sent me a kind message saying she never expected the card and was sorry her name was used. That made me feel worse, not better.

My teammate thinks I should have kept the prize and ignored Sheila. My partner thinks returning it was sensible but says the follow-up email made me look determined to win an argument after choosing to walk away.

I wanted the record to show that consent mattered. I may have extended a one-minute awkward comment into office lore.

AITA for returning the card and then formally objecting to how the return was described?