Surprise rations found in senior’s basement

Audrey Wilde and Iris Sparrow were friends for 35 years. Before her death in April, Sparrow had requested that Wilde act as the executor of her estate, to which her long-time friend agreed.

But after selling the vehicle, furniture, house and most household items, Audrey and her daughter Lorelle made it into a corner of the basement where they discovered a vast cache of rations worth roughly $20,000.

The discovery is made up of freezed-dry meals, and each one of the large plastic containers holds 200 meals.

Their initial reactions weren’t all too surprising.

“Wow! It was just like, wow, but then we were looking, well, why?” Lorelle recalled.

“Oh, my goodness!” Audrey recounted with a chuckle. “I wish I could’ve talked to her before she passed away.”

Once the rations were discovered, it was time to put a plan in motion to sell them off. Audrey began sorting through and organizing them while Lorelle was in charge of their marketing strategy.

“I sorted it out downstairs here, and then Lorie hammered it on social media,” Audrey said. “If it wasn’t for her I’d still be sitting in a pile of boxes.”

Although ultimately successful, their social media campaign didn’t come without a few hiccups.

“I advertised, of course, on Facebook and all of the sites there,” Lorelle said. “But, I was being blocked by all of the sites, and I don’t know why. I (had it tagged as) survival food, food, freeze dry food; but, I kept getting blocked. So, I put it on my own Facebook page.”

From there word spread of the unusual rations sale and people flocked to the Saskatoon home to get in on the amazing prices which are set at 15 per cent of the cost.

“This is the perfect stuff for camping food,” customer Dean Sopher said. “We picked up this entire haul here for about the price of a shopping cart, and it lasts 20-30 years.”