WORTHINGTON — During the month of August, shoppers raised $684.69 for school supplies by Rounding Up their grocery bills at Worthington’s Hy-Vee.
This was the first year of the project, but The Globe & Hy-Vee Worthington plan to launch the project again in 2022.
“We didn’t have much traffic at the start of August, so we made it into a competition,” said Hy-Vee Manager Dustin Hahn. “We offered gift cards to the employees who clocked in the highest RoundUp numbers. Cashiers got excited — people were switching shifts to be able to work more and earn more toward the RoundUp.”
And the competition paid off. The top three RoundUp cashiers — Lauren Madison, Cristina Magana and Logan Neuenburg — were responsible for more than half of the total raised for Worthington students’ school supplies.
“Next year, we’ll start the competition at the start of the month, and we’ll raise the goal,” Hahn said.
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Roberta Fultz, advertising director at The Globe, was excited about the results.
“Hy-Vee’s team learned more about the project, got motivated and did an amazing job,” Fultz said. “They raised most of the funds in the last week of August. I look forward to seeing what will happen next year!”
District 518 counselors coordinate most school supply purchases for individual students. Counselors Laurie Knudson and Maggie Gerdes, and social worker Angie Meyer, said they were grateful for the project.
“Even Wal-Mart is fairly tapped out for regular school supplies right now,” Knudson said. “We’re still gauging what supplies our students had the most trouble getting.”
“We’ll share photos of the school supplies we’re able to purchase with these funds, so Worthington shoppers can see how their RoundUp funds were used,” Meyer added.
Gerdes said she’d love to extend the funds to winter gear and supplies.
“After the first snow, we typically get a rush of calls and emails from teachers, saying, “This student doesn’t have boots, or a coat, or gloves,’” Gerdes said. “We try to stock our supply closets with coats, hats and gloves, but if we don’t have one available that fits, we’ll buy one.”
