The Hillsdale Market House is a locally owned grocery store with 2 locations in the area. Every year about this time, they create a one day customer appreciation sale. Their vendors participate by offering the lowest prices of the year on well-known brands and staples. The Market House operates on a very thin markup for this one day sale and moves truckloads of groceries at rock bottom prices. They have been doing this for about 30 years now.
The sale generates so much community enthusiasm and support that the Market House needs to seek out service organizations and clubs to help out for one day. It is just not effiicient or practical to hire people to work for just one day, so service clubs volunteer their time and the Market House pays the club a lump sum for doing a lot of customer service work.
This year, the Exchange Club of Hillsdale stepped up to help out. They provided shifts of workers to bag groceries and sell hot dogs. Dozens of Exchangites manned the checkout lines to assist in bagging the huge quantities of goceries that were being purchased in bulk. Cases of canned goods and beverages filled many shopping carts along with lots of meat, cereal, bakery, and deli products.
Folks who have experienced this before know that there are only so many shopping carts to go around, even though the Market House brings in extras for this event. This means that the best way to get a cart is to help out someone who is emptying their groceries into their vehicle. This is the one day of the year when there are no buggies in the cart corral or left unattended anywhere in the parking lot.
On the way out is a lunch stand. Hot dogs and Pepsi products are sold by donation. All of the proceeds go to the service organization with the food and beverage being donated. The stand is manned by 2-3 people with one doing the cooking and the others doing the selling.
This is an annual community event that gets people together to share a fun-filled shopping experience. It is due to events like this that makes me say “Life is good in Jonesville… and Hillsdale”.
Mike Venturini
Jonesville Michigan Bed and Breakfast Innkeeper
“Life is good in Jonesville”
