Imagine the feeling of going to pay for your cart load of items around the holidays and someone interrupts by asking if THEY can pay for it all. This very thing is what Meijer has done at all of its 235 stores for their annual Very Merry Meijer Christmas. FOX 17 Morning Mix was the only West Michigan media that got to witness the joy first hand as we followed Hank Meijer, Chief Executive, around the Greenville store on Saturday, Dec. 16.
“This is our fourth year of this great Very Meijer Christmas. The idea was just to add an element of fun and surprise in a very hectic time of the year when a lot of people are very careful in their shopping and making a lot of big decisions and obviously our big time of the year as well. Just a way to have some fun and for me the highlight of the Christmas season being able to surprise someone and say this is on us Merry Christmas.” Hank said.
With the help of team leaders, they were able to watch shoppers as they loaded their cart or even put items back that didn’t’ fit the budget. During our experience, the shoppers who were surprised at the checkout were actually gifted those items as well!
One couple that spent a lot of time in the Greenville store Saturday, was Erica Coy and Jimmy Roe of Sheridan.
“We were actually Christmas shopping for our four kids. We have three boys and one girl two older boys our daughter and younger son that will be two next month. We actually had weekend off from work and school and decided to go out shopping. We had it all budgeted out, as you can tell, with Santa Bucks and everything. Just like anybody else times are hard have to budget carefully on what you have and definitely wasn’t expecting anything like this.” Erica said.
She is referring to Hank approaching them as they were unloading their cart load to pay. Cameras rolling behind Hank, he first gave thanked them for choosing Meijer and then proceeded to explain how they were graciously paying for it all. As you can imagine, Erica and Jimmy were shocked.
“It’s hard to pick and choose what you are going to get when you know you can’t afford a lot so seeing them do this it really means a lot.” Jimmy said.
On top of paying for their items, Meijer gave the couple a gift card. Instead of using it on their own family, Jimmy and Erica scoured the store so they could pay-it-forward and give someone else a wonderful surprise.
“A lot of people are doing their Christmas shopping and this may be the biggest expenditure they make during the course of the year and when someone is very careful with their money and has to watch how those dollars are spent we want them to find values and bargains at Meijer anyway but this is just an extra way to say thank you when that shopping cart is full of toys, we’ve stretched our budget, how can we help.” Hank added.
Even the cashier who rang up the orders was given a $100 Meijer gift card.
The reactions from all of the stores were awesome! Click here to see these Very Merry Meijer surprises.
