History
This program was started in 1990 with just one grocery store, Giant
Food, and then expanded in 1991 with the addition of Safeway and
the eventual addition of four more stores: Fresh Fields, Shoppers
Food Warehouse, Magruders' and Sniders' Markets.
How does this program work?
You exchange your checks and/or cash at church for equal amounts
of gift certificates in denominations of $1 ,$5, $10, $20, and $25
from your favorite grocery store. The denominations available vary
from store to store. You use them just like cash with the
only stipulation being that you should not expect more than 10%
in change. However, some store clerks are more lenient than others
in this respect. |
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How does this help UUCSS?
The church buys certificates in minumum amounts of $2,000 to $5,000
based on the store requirement and receives an immiediate discount
(profit) of 5% from all stores except Safeway which gives 6% interest.
Since the inception of this program UUCSS has earned an average
income of $6,800 annually while investing no more than $28,000 in
certificates at any one time. These figures compute to an average
annual rate of 24% on our investment |
Who handles the program?
Four or five colunteers from the church membership identified by
special name tags run the program with the permission of the Church
Board. One of them acts as treasurer of the account and one as collector,
The tresurer of this special account oversses the purchase
of certificates from the participating stores. The sales people
turn in their sales to the collector of this special account who
banks all the checks and cash and forwards the information to the
treasurer with a copy of the deposit slip. |
