Island store raises support for the RNLI in Easter egg giveaway
A LOCAL island store on Sanday, Orkney has pushed the boat out in its support for the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) after a mishap in Easter egg ordering.
Daniel Daffyd, store owner of Sinclair General Stores, mistakenly ordered 80 cases of Easter eggs for the island’s population when he only intended to order 80 individual eggs.
The result left Daniel with 720 eggs now to sell for an island population of around 500, leaving the store owner feeling “embarrassed”.
He said: “When the order first came in my initial thought was, well this someone else has made a mistake and that I had someone else’s order by accident.
“After looking back I noticed it was actually my mistake and I’d ordered 80 pallets instead of 80 individual eggs. I was quite embarrassed by it at the start but we’ve managed to turn it to do some good now.”
Emblematic of the resilience of local store retailers, Daniel instead looked to make lemonade with the lemons he was left with and is now running a raffle for 100 of the Easter eggs, with the proceeds going on to support the RNLI.
All locals had to do was donate a pound and they could be in with the chance of winning every kids’ Easter dream.
On the first day alone, the store had raised £200 towards the raffle, outstripping Daniel’s initial expectations.
He said: “The community was behind this from the start, even before the international acclaim this was getting.
“We set up 200 squares for people to buy at £1 each and they all sold out within a day.”
After the story started to gain traction in the community, international news sites started to really get the ball rolling after picking up the story.
BBC News published a story detailing the mishap and since then the ball has been rolling non-stop for Sinclair General Stores.
Daniel said: “Now we’ve got international interest with some people even phoning to see if they could donate to the raffle.
“We thought selling out in a day was impressive but, now, we’ve sold around 800 squares so we’ve made about £800 and we’ve still got interest coming in from all over for this. We’ve had to bring in extra staff members just to man our phones.
“We’ve even had people offering to set up Crowdfunding to help add to the money raised too.”
Since setting this up, Daffyd has also had to make a new order for stock as consumers continued to purchase his Easter eggs supply with the chocolate either being mailed out across the UK or donated to the local food bank.
Able to turn a simple mistake into an opportunity that will support the charity’s local branch has shown the dedication the store has to the local area.
Daniel explained: “Support for the RNLI was so important to us as a community as well, we’re a small island surrounded by the sea so their job is vital for people like us.
“A lot of thanks has to also go to Barbara Moodie, who helped to set up the raffle. She’s not only our store manger but the local branch president for the Lifeboats as well, the work she has done on this one can be underestimated.”
Anyone interested in donating to ‘The Great Sanday Easter Egg Over-Eggstravagance’ can do so via this link, where you can purchase a square towards the raffle or some memorabilia from the event including a mug or a t-shirt.
