A Nova Scotia pharmacy that ordered 220 toasters too many has managed to sell all of them within one day.
Betty Swaffer, the front store manager at the Waverley Road Pharmachoice in Dartmouth, N.S., only meant to get two Sunbeam toasters when she placed an order for the store a couple of months ago.
But it turned out she pressed the “2” key two extra times by accident, and, much to her surprise, 222 toasters were delivered to the small pharmacy on Thursday.
She wasn’t able to return them and they were taking up a lot of room in the small store. So after putting them on sale at a hefty discount, posting about the situation on Facebook, and speaking with Global News, the store had a very busy day Friday. People lined up to get the marked-down appliances.
“Nova Scotia is amazing,” said Swaffer Saturday. “The support was amazing, my small community is amazing. A lot of these toasters are being donated to shelters and breakfast school programs … so it’s fantastic.”
Divine Dishes Take Out & Catering, located not far from the pharmacy, picked up a dozen toasters on Friday to donate to charity.
Nora Lindner, who owns the catering business with her husband, said they saw Swaffer’s post and decided to help out.
“That’s a large amount of toasters for a pharmacy to try and sell,” she said. “My husband and I said, ‘why don’t we pick some up and we can donate them to Margaret’s House,’ whether they need them, or their clients do.
“And also, you know, help our neighbours out who kind of had an abundance of these toasters.”
‘Our chance to say thanks’
Margaret’s House is operated by the Feeding Others of Dartmouth (F.O.O.D.) Society, which serves more than 3,000 meals every month to those in need.
“For the duration of our business, whenever we’ve had anything we could donate, we always go to them,” said Lindner. “They’re local, they’re very close to us and they do a lot of good work.”
She added that she wasn’t surprised the community bought toasters en masse to help take some heat off Swaffer.
“The staff, and especially Betty, they are just truly a wonderful part of our community,” she said.
“They’re always helping out in the community as well, so I think everyone really recognizes that about them, and so this was our chance to say thanks for being so awesome all the time to all of us.”