Hailly Martin is going to be eating for free for the next few months.
The 26-year-old Mission resident was the winner of the Mission Mid-Day Rotary Club’s Mad Dash Shopping Spree at Save-On-Foods.
On Thursday morning (July 6) Martin was at the local store to claim her prize – a five-minute dash to grab as many groceries as she could get.
Before the shopping spree, Martin said she had some jitters when she found out she had won.
“I was really excited, obviously, and really nervous. I’m not really a social media person or anything like that.”
Martin didn’t really have a strategy in mind, other than the basics.
“Just do it quickly and get as much as I can, things that are non-perishable,” she said.
With Save-On-Foods staff and Rotary members there to cheer her on, Martin began her frenzied shopping spree.
Three-hundred seconds later, she had amassed $882.41 in groceries.
“It was super fun, super nerve-wracking, super exhausting, but good,” she said immediately after her time ran out.
In the end, Martin said she was just grabbing whatever she could as her strategy slipped away.
“I thought I had one, but when everybody started cheering I just started running. I definitely got some weird things but it’s all stuff I can use, so that’s important.”
She said the weirdest item she grabbed was a large can of pumpkin, while the best was the several bags of sugar she heaved into the cart.
“All this sugar … it’s going to last forever.”
Sean Melia, treasurer of the local Rotary Club said the whole promotion is being considered a success.
“There was tremendous community support. A lot of participation and a lot of tickets were sold,” he said.
And while they didn’t quite reach their fundraising goal, the shopping spree did create a lot of fun and excitement while raising much-needed cash.
“Most importantly, this allows our club to continue to fund some of the local community projects we have underway. The objective here is to give back to the community. We have a lucky winner who has stocked her shelves and we’ve been able to stock our shelves, so to speak, with funds to help the community.”
