ANTIGONISH: After receiving a generous donation from a customer on March 30, staff at the Atlantic Superstore decided to “pay it forward” by purchasing groceries for four local seniors.
Patti Hilton, manager of the Antigonish supermarket, says a man dropped off 10 sealed envelopes intended to be distributed to the store’s staff members displaying supportive, positive messages such as “Thank you we are grateful,” and “Thank you for all you’re doing during COVID-19.”
“I took them upstairs and wasn’t quite sure what it was,” Hilton said.
“Lo and behold, there was $40 in the envelope and there were 10 envelopes.”
Stuffed inside each envelope was $40, for a total of $400.
“I was absolutely flabbergasted someone would actually do this,” she said.
Hilton indicated that during their Monday morning huddle, staff became “ecstatic” after deciding to use the generous gesture of $400 to “pay it forward” by purchasing $100 of groceries for four local seniors.
“They are vulnerable right now, and a lot of them can’t get out,” she said. “Here’s the thing – we are all still working, we still get a paycheque every week and there are so many people out of work and so many seniors that need help right now that we decided to pay it forward.”
The store partnered with a local official who works with seniors in the Antigonish area to distribute the groceries, and all four orders were delivered personally by April 1.
Hilton advised staff are very appreciative of the support they have been receiving from shoppers, but they wanted to something bigger for their community.
“It’s a good feeling to have something like this go through the store,” she said. “Especially, when there’s not so much good going on right now in the world.”