Jan Janzen’s new year’s windfall will be shared with two local charities and her grandchildren.
The 60-year-old Walnut Grove grandmother was the lucky winner of the Langley Advance Times and Real Canadian Superstore’s Win What You Didn’t Get For Christmas contest, meaning she will enjoy a $200-shopping spree in the near future.
Janzen was one of more than 150,000 to connect with the newspaper’s Facebook-based contest, which started Boxing Day and ran into the new year.
As the title implied, people were entering to win what they didn’t get for Christmas, and they were asked to share what they would buy with $200 at Superstore.
This is the second time the Langley Advance Times has partnered with Superstore to offer this, and reader reaction was phenomonal, said publisher Lisa Farquharson.
As a long-time follower of the Advance Times Facebook page, Janzen spotted the posting just after Christmas and thought she’d take a chance.
“I only entered twice. I was very lucky. I’ve entered other contests, and I’ve put in more entries, but I just decided oh, okay, I’m just going to enter… and then they called my name.”
“It’s very exciting,” said Janzen, admittedly shocked when she started getting online notifications and calls from friends and family telling her she was the winner.
There is nothing specific that Jan and her husband Ralph needed for themselves after the holidays, so she decided almost instantly that she’d pay forward her good fortune.
She will be buying a $50 gift card for the Langley Food Bank, and another for the Salvation Army’s Gateway of Hope shelter.
Then, she plans to hit the Joe Fresh clothing section next time she’s in the store, expecting to hunt out a few cute outfits for her two-year-old grandson Ryan and her five-year-old granddaughter Brooklyn.
Now armed with their gift cards, Jan’s husband, Ralph, joked that he too might get a little something out of the deal. After wrapping up in the clothing shop, they might head over to the meat section in search of a little something special for dinner.
Superstore assistant manager Matt Bamford and Farquharson were impressed to learn of Janzen’s intent to give a large part of her prize money to others.
“I just thought it was awesome that people always want to pay it forward,” Farquharson said. “Langley is a great community, and we see it often with contests where people want to pay it forward and donate part of their winning proceeds to less fortunate in our community.”
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roxanne.hooper@langleyadvancetimes.com
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