By Brian Argabright
For Vanessa Garcia, her most recent trip to Walmart won’t be one she’ll forget anytime soon.
The 18-year-old was selected among the tier five employees at La Vida Serena Nursing & Rehabilitation for a three-minute shopping spree at Walmart Wednesday morning. While the spree was limited to just the produce food portion of the store, Garcia took her chance seriously.
A member of the night shift team at La Vida Serena, Garcia said she had only been working at the facility a few months. According to Lisa Flores, marketing and admissions coordinator for La Vida Serena, that gave Garcia, and others like her, extra opportunities to win.
“Employees received extra opportunities to win based on their job performance and attendance,” Flores explained. “New hires also received extra opportunities as a hiring incentive.”
Creative Solutions in HealthCare, La Vida Serena’s home company, had offered similar prizes at its other facilities. Flores explained it was an opportunity to reward the employees for their hard work especially in these difficult times as nursing home and rehabilitation centers, and their staff and residents, were hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We were very excited for this. We’re coming out of a year that was rough on everybody, so this is something positive for everyone involved,” Flores said, who added the facility has recently re-opened to the public for visitations.
Flores, and many of the other staff members, took on a different role Wednesday morning as cheerleaders to help Garcia along her shopping spree. While she couldn’t get any help loading items into baskets, she could get help in getting new baskets when she filled one up.
Before she began, Garcia was asked if she had a strategy. She said she was going straight for the meat section and then head to snacks. She added she had not planned any particular route, but she was ready.
An air horn signaled the start of Garcia’s three-minute dash and, true to her word, she made a mad dash to the meat section and began loading up the first cart. Ground beef, packages of bacon, brisket, chicken and more flew off the shelves and into the carts placed nearby.
With co-workers and Walmart employees cheering her on, Garcia moved at a frenetic pace. When the three minutes were up, she had filled up four carts with the kind of haul that would make any competitive griller jealous.
All that was left was to find out how much the spree cost. As package after package of meat was scanned and bagged, Garcia was asked how much she though the final total would be.
“I don’t know. Maybe $1,000,” she said.
The final damage – $1,703.66 – with a receipt that was as long as Garcia’s arm.
As her coworkers helped take the baskets outside to load into her car, Garcia was asked if there was anything she wished she could have added to her cart.
“I wish I could have gotten to the snacks,” she said with a laugh.
