A cashier at a Taber, Alta. grocery store was brought to tears after more than 100 of her customers came together to give her a boost this holiday season.
Stacey Maddin has been working as the checkout of the town’s IGA for the past two years, but until last week she may have underestimated her popularity.
Maddin said she was getting ready to leave work when a coworker notified her that someone had dropped something off for her. She ended up finding a note that led her on a scavenger hunt around the store where she began to find gifts from her customers.
“I’m in complete shock, not knowing that a ‘Hi’ and ‘How are you doing?’ spreads throughout a small little town like Taber,” Maddin said.
It all started when Maddin’s landlord Lindsay Anderson wanted to give her a month’s worth of rent for Christmas. Anderson set up a Facebook page to advertise her idea.
“I suggested that we find 42 people to each contribute $15 and we could pay her rent for January and that would be really fun to do that for her,” Anderson said.
That would add up to a total of $630, but when word got out about who the money was going to, support poured in.
“Within 24 hours we had her rent paid for January,” Anderson said.
After reaching her goal, Anderson decided to keep the Facebook page up and ended up collecting three months worth of rent, $1,700 in gift cards, and an extra $500 in cash from 125 people.
“I was just so touched by the comments people made,” Anderson said. “People commented on how they go into the store and look for her till and their children wanted to go through her till.”
She received one final surprise at the end of Maddin’s scavenger hunt as dozens of customers greeted her at the exit of the store shouting, ‘Merry Christmas.’
“I don’t like crying in front of people but this…I had no choice,” Maddin said.
Maddin, who is a single mother, said the extra money will go towards paying off some bills and Christmas gifts for her four kids and three grandchildren.
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