Walmart finishes No. 1

Published 10:17 pm Monday, June 18, 2012

The North Main Street Walmart store finished first in the nation on Friday at the end of a seven-week push to raise the most money for its local children’s hospital.

The store concluded the campaign with $83,580.23 raised through the help of customers who gave donations at the registers, bought food concessions and special T-shirts at the store and more.

“Thank you to the Suffolk customers for helping us out to raise all this money,” said shift manager Tiffinie Hoagland. “We couldn’t do it without them.”

Email newsletter signup

All 4,500 Walmart stores in the nation raised money from May 1 to June 15, each for its own local children’s hospital.

Donations from Hampton Roads stores will go toward the Children’s Hospital of the King’s Daughters.

It was down to the wire on Friday night. All stores were to cut off donations at midnight local time, so a competing store in Arizona had three extra hours to rack up donations.

However, they couldn’t top the creative efforts of the Suffolk store, which sold dinners at the store, held a silent auction and yard sale, locked up folks in a mock jail at the front of the store and more.

Of the top 20 stores in the nation, 12 were in Hampton Roads, said Larissa Trinder, director of corporation relations and special events for CHKD.

“It’s amazing,” she said. “These results are really astounding. We’re really, really proud that for a smaller community, we have a lot of people with big hearts.”

The Suffolk store will have $10,000 more added to its total for being the No. 1 store, bringing it to within $7,000 of its $100,000 goal for the year.