Earlier this year, Wes Guenette from Niverville entered Bigway’s Fresh Rewards contest, the grand prize of which was a grocery shopping spree. The contest ran across all Bigway franchises, and this year a winner was selected from every town with a Bigway store. A few weeks ago, Guenette got a call with the good news: he had won!
“It took a bit of time to coordinate when this could take place, but we finally made it happen on August 13 at 6:30 p.m.,” says Guenette.
When the day of the shopping spree arrived, Bigway owner John Schmidtke reviewed the rules with Guenette. He would have 50 seconds to claim up to $500 in groceries, with a limit of eight items per section.
“With my wife LaShawn, mom Patti, and especially my extra loud cheering daughter Calysta hyping me up, the countdown started,” Guenette says. “Five, four, three, two, one… go! I grabbed some coffee, then straight to the meat and grabbed some ribs, chicken, brisket, then off to grab some energy bars. My Calysta was loudly cheering ‘Go, Dad, go!’ over and over.”
By the time the final countdown began, Guenette says he could hardly believe the time was almost up. “It truly seemed like it had only been maybe 15 seconds, but it had been almost 50 already,” he says, chuckling. “I then ran for some ice cream, as per my daughter’s request!”
When his time expired, Guenette proceeded to the checkout.
“I went to the till and my total was somewhere around $475. I have to say, it went so quick! John [Schmidtke] was awesome and I really appreciated winning this.”
Guenette and his family have lived in Niverville for less than two years and have come to love the town. “It was a big transition for me being from Victoria, then Kelowna, but Niverville has been great,” Guenette says.