Reward for shopping locally

‘Shopping local’ has paid off for Murtoa’s Sonia Schodde, who won a car after buying Christmas gifts from the town’s pharmacy.

Two Murtoa Community Pharmacy and Rupanyup Depot customers were big winners through a December Pharmacy Best Buys consumer catalogue competition, with Sandra Gerdtz collecting a $500 Helloworld gift card.

Mrs Schodde won a Mazda 2 Maxx car valued at $21,200.

Murtoa Community Pharmacy owner and pharmacist Kai Kerai said he and staff Dimple, Jo and Lynda were thrilled for Sonia and found it rewarding to present such an amazing prize.

“When I phoned Sonia to tell her she had won, she said, ‘I’m so overwhelmed with shock’, and then cried while trying to tell her husband Craig the amazing news,” he said.

Mrs Schodde said she entered the competition at the pharmacy’s Christmas shopping night.

“I hadn’t done any Christmas shopping and I found all the gifts I needed including the ‘lucky’ perfume from the catalogue for my daughter that ended up winning me a car,” she said.

Mrs Schodde strongly encouraged Murtoa district residents to ‘shop locally’ to keep services and the town going strong.

“Shop locally and look what can happen to you, too,” she said.

Mr Kerai said the Murtoa pharmacy had its first winner from the Pharmacy Best Buys Program in January, 2015 .

“We have had a massive 38 winners and prizes in total of more than $72,000,” he said. “Past prizes include two Mazda cars valued at more than $21,000 each, a $10,000 trip to Thailand, ipads, Smeg kitchen appliances, Helloworld travel cards, prepaid Visa cards, Dyson vacuums and digital TVS, just to name a few.

“The pharmacy has had people as far away as Mildura drive to Murtoa just to get an entry in.”

The nationwide competition is a joint venture between Penfold Mazda and Australian Pharmaceuticals Industries, API.

Supporting more than 150 independent pharmacies, the program has a new consumer competition each month.

“So stay tuned, shop at Murtoa Community Pharmacy and you could be the next big winner,” Mr Kerai said.