Any donations to Grandma Flo can now receive an official donation receipt for income tax purposes! Cheques can be made out to Gilbert Plains Municipality with Grandma Flo written on the memo line. These can be dropped off at the Municipal Office in Gilbert Plains or mailed to Grandma Flo c/o Gilbert Plains Municipality, Box 220 Gilbert Plains, MB R0L 0X0. They will also accept and issue receipts f
or e-transfers ,for Grandma Flo, to [email protected] and putting Grandma Flo in the message section (also best to call Connie at the RM office first at 204-548-2326 to advise that an e-transfer will be coming for Grandma Flo)
My Grandma Flo was an amazing, kind, and sweet lady. She loved collecting points and shopping sales. Grandma Flo loved her family and friends dearly, and she was extremely generous. She quite often would surprise each one of us with multiple items and say “Oh, I saw this on sale and thought that you could use it”. Grandma Flo was thoughtful and giving. She was the coupon queen and she loved entering contests. She was quite lucky and won often. Grandma Flo always shared her winnings with her loved ones. She would insist that we use her Air Miles number anytime possible. She logically thought that it made more sense to “all collect together with one number” rather than each having their own small amount. She was so happy when we added to her total. I proudly pulled a tattered card written in pen “Grandma’s Air Miles number” any time required. I have inherited her love of coupons and collecting points. I have been inspired by her generous spirit and have been enjoying “my idea of a good time” for a few years now. I remember the night I went to a presentation in Strathclair, put on by a young local girl who had gone up North to teach. She talked about how unbelievably high the price of certain grocery items where in that northern community compared to our local stores. The comparisons were staggering, and I was affected when she told us how often Northern families had to rely on food banks to help feed their families. The young teacher was raising money so she could take a load of donations for the food bank, on her next flight up North. It stuck in my mind, when she mentioned that one of the most requested items at the food bank was feminine hygiene products. After that, I had my coworkers help me collect and cut out coupons from the flyers that came in every second Saturday edition of the Winnipeg Free Press. Buying things on sale, that I could use coupons for, brought me pleasure. It was like my very own Canadian version of “Extreme Couponing” My family and friends received shampoo, toothpaste, and deodorant that I bought while using coupons. I loved the feeling of giving people things they could use. In July of 2015 ,the federal government removed the GST from tampons and other feminine hygiene products. That year Chatelaine magazine wrote an article called “14 brilliant things to do with your tampon tax winfall”. They estimated that the average Canadian woman would save $5.30 per year by not having to pay GST on feminine hygiene products. I remember hearing another statistic that in a certain month in 2015, a Food Bank in Winnipeg received 6909 requests for menstral products and they where only able to fill 125 of those requests. Most women would be excited to know that they would be saving money, but yet other women couldn’t even afford to buy the things they needed to “host Aunt Flo” every month. This is when I thought, I can make a small difference. Feminine Hygiene products always come on sale, and you can get coupons for them. They are non perishable, and they don’t have a best before date. You can easily store them, and almost every women that uses the services of a food bank could use feminine hygiene products.
“My thing I do for fun” involves setting money aside into a certain account. Also, I collect Optimum Points. I use a President’s Choice credit card that gives me Optimum points every time I use it, and bonus points when I use it at Shopper’s Drug Mart/Super Store/ No Frills/Esso. My closest Shoppers Drug Mart is 1 and a half hours away. But Shoppers Drug Mart has these amazing promotions called Bonus Redemption weekends, you get to trade your points in, for more than they are regularly worth. So I make an event out of it! I clip coupons, which are mostly available on line now (but some great coupons can be found in grocery store aisles too). I plan it all out, and I shop for things that are on sale, that I have a coupon for, and I use my points to pay. Sometimes, I get a unreal amount of stuff almost for free. The best thing to buy with points or saved money is feminine hygiene because there is NO TAX on them, which means all the money can go towards buying tampons and pads! Sometimes I buy things that are on a promotion, just to rack up Optimum points, that I will use another time. I watch for 2 for 1 deals and sales at Safeway too, and they often give away $10 gift cards if you buy over $100 (that I use to buy more stuff for the Food Bank). I have been able to donate the purchases to Winnipeg Harvest, Dauphin Food Bank, Grandview Food Bank, Gladstone United Church Food Bank, and to the Parkland Women’s Shelter. It feels so good to get a great deal, and then to donate it to back to those who really do need and appreciate it. If she were still alive today, I would hug Grandma Flo and say, “ Thank you so much for how much you always loved me, for how much you taught me, and for how much you always made me (and everyone in our family) feel special.”
My name is Wendy and I enjoy donating feminine hygiene (and other personal hygiene and food items) in Grandma Flo’s honour. Ways you can support and help:
You could sign up to coupon sites (PG Everyday) with your email address and send me any coupons you won’t be using for feminine hygiene, toothpaste, shampoo, laundry soap, etc
You could keep an eye out for feminine hygiene product coupons that you find attached to the grocery store shelves, and send them to me. If you don’t have your own or don’t collect PC Optimum points, you could supply my
PC Optimum Points card number for your transactions at Shopper’s Drug Mart/ Super Store/ No Frills/Esso. 608559 30732 3074 2990
You can transfer points from your Optimum Points card to my Optimum Points number. You have to go on line to your Optimum account to transfer points. You could donate money to my Grandma Flo account. (Maybe the $5.30/ year you save from not paying GST on feminine hygiene at paypal.me/wendymcdonald2020, or an e-transfer to [email protected] or 2046484401
You could buy feminine hygiene products and donate them to your local Food Bank.
