Community Retailer of the Year Nisa Local Toddington has helped a local school girl reach her goal of raising £2,200 to join an international girl guiding event in British Columbia.

The team at Toddington, Bedfordshire, helped Kayleigh Parker on her mission by inviting customers to their ‘buy a balloon’ event which took place on Saturday 10 May 2014.

The store sold balloons priced at £2, two weeks prior to the event, offering the owner of the balloon that travels the furthest the chance to win a £50 hamper. On the day of the event they continued selling tickets outside the store alongside Kayleigh, selling home-made cakes, teas and coffees.

With such a high interest in her charity, the competition managed to fill four roll cages of balloons. At 1pm, store manager Gary Bilbrough and the rest of the staff stopped the traffic outside the store and released the balloons from their cages. The winner of the competition will be announced four weeks after the event in order to locate all of the balloons.

Gary said: “Our store is at the heart of the community and serving the community is at the heart of all that we do. We’re delighted to be able to support Kayleigh. She’s worked extremely hard to raise the funds so far and we hope to bring the community together to give her the final push that’s needed!”

Kayleigh had already raised an impressive £1,600 and Saturday’s event managed to raise £620.13, exceeding her target.

Nisa Local Toddington was named Community Retailer of the Year at the Convenience Retail Awards 2014.

Source

Emily Parker