HAGERSVILLE—On September 7, 2024 No Frills stores around the country took part in a new event called ‘Thank You Day’, in which their head office tasked individual stores with finding a way to give back to their communities.
“We do a lot of fundraisers here where we ask the customers to give a dollar, two dollars, to different charities. Usually, we do something for the firefighters or something for the hospital,” said Ron Fairburn, owner of Ron’s No Frills in Hagersville.
He continued, “We get to see the kind of numbers we do compared to other stores in other areas, and we’re a small little store, and our customers are so generous we end up beating out all the bigger stores in the amount of donations we give to whatever local group or event we’re asking people to donate to.”
While many stores opted to hand out free food to celebrate the day, staffers at Ron’s No Frills had a different idea.
“Most of the schools in the area, they all run hot dog days, or Christmas dinners around the holidays, and they all come here to get their supplies. We usually try to help them out when they do. They’re always looking to us when they need to purchase product,” said Fairburn. “It was my guys who said, ‘why don’t we do something for the schools?’”
The seven schools included in the giveaway were Hagersville Elementary School, St. Mary’s Catholic School, Walpole North, Jarvis Public School, Jarvis Community Christian School, Rainham Central, and Oneida Central. Each school received a $250 PC gift card distributed by Assistant Manager Mike Kett and Grocery Manager Dalton Fifield.
Fairburn said that each school was free to use the card as they please: “A lot of them have said they run nutrition programs…. I know that a couple said they had upcoming charitable events they’re doing where they sell food to raise money for charities themselves.”
He said while the ‘Thank You Day’ was a new opportunity to give back, his store is constantly looking for ways to support their community: “We’ve always got some kind of event on the go, whether it be our store specifically or our head office pushing us to do community type events. That’s one good thing about No Frills, the whole company, we really like looking after our communities. In Hagersville especially, it’s easy here,” he said. “We’ve got a great community; we’ve got great customers. I’ve worked in many stores all over Ontario, and this was my goal store to end up at.”
In fact, it was Fairburn who originally set up the Hagersville store 20 years ago, long before he would eventually own the location.
“When we opened this store up and feeling the sense of community and the way people treated each other I decided right then and there that I wanted this store,” he recalled, noting how that sense of community “makes it easy for us to want to give back to the community.”
Fairburn praised his staff for not only coming up with the idea for the school giveaway, but for their community-minded focus: “Right off the bat, they want to help the people coming in the door. All my staff lives in the area; everybody that comes in are a neighbour, a friend, a distant relative, or just people they see on a regular basis in town.”
His sense of thankfulness extends to the community, who always donate to the store’s food drive despite “every time you turn around somebody’s asking” for a donation: “I know there’s a certain amount of burnout that comes with that, but the people in this community keep giving. That’s what makes it easy for us to do it.”
