NEWS PHOTO RYAN MCCRACKEN
(From left) Brad Towner, Brandon Rhodes, Trina Towner, Jenn Nelson and Justin Coghill of Leon's Furniture Medicine Hat stand for a photo under the store's sign. Leon's has been partnering with local businesses to give various $50 gift cards to local frontline workers every seven days for the past three weeks.
rmccracken@medicinehatnews.com@MHNMcCracken
Leon’s Furniture in Medicine Hat has launched a new promotion to help local businesses while honouring the efforts of frontline workers.
The promotion – which has been running for nearly three weeks – allows Hatters to nominate frontline workers in the community for a $50 gift card to a local business of the week via social media. Leon’s purchases one gift card for the nominee, while the selected business – this week being Chambers Salon – awards another to the nominator.Â
“I think it’s important that we just give back to the community, and what better way than to help support a local business and give to someone working the front lines,” said Leon’s manager Trina Towner. “We just felt it was important that we reward those frontline workers – whether you work at Walmart, whether you work in the hospital or drive a city bus – all the people who are out there every day, putting themselves at risk in these crazy times.”
Previous weeks have featured gift cards to Ricky’s All Day Grill and Papa Taso’s. Towner says she opted to switch to a salon this week, both to change things up and to offer “a little pampering” to a deserving nominee.Â
“We started with a couple restaurants because we thought, people are staying at home and maybe they’re getting tired of cooking,” she said. “Then we thought about some other things that are out there. We’re still looking for some new ones as well. We’ve been in contact with some other businesses; I won’t say which ones yet, but the hair salon actually approached us.”
Towner added it’s also been rewarding to see the response from the community, and just how many people are deserving of recognition. This week’s contest – which will be chosen at random and announced Tuesday – had 45 nominations as of 3:30 p.m. Friday.Â
“The amount of nominations we’ve had is quite large,” she said. “It’s wonderful to see the response from the community and how they support this and have so many people they know working on the front lines who they want to bless a little bit with something. It’s not a lot, but it’s something. It’s just kind of a nice way to say thank you for being out there and working through this.”
With furniture stores set to re-open to the public as early as May 14 under Stage 1 of the provincial government’s relaunch plan, Towner says she may expand the contest to include everyone in future weeks. Either way, she plans on continuing the trend until the end of the month.Â
“We just want to say thank you to the people in Medicine Hat for supporting us. We want to keep it going until the end of May, for sure,” she said. “If we carry it on after that, who knows how things go?”
