ROBERT PIERCE
• Leader & Times
With grocery bills seemingly growing out of control with each visit to the store, customers are looking for ways to cut costs.
Many chain stores offer ways to cut costs and reward frequent customers for shopping at their store at the same time. In Plains, the locally-owned Grand Avenue Market (GAM) has its own rewards program, and Manager Cara Cain said in addition to regular savings, customers can save even more with a new promotion the store offers.
“It is our rewards program, and we are doing it every 13 weeks,” she said. “You get a stamp for every $10 you spend, and once you get 20 stamps or $200, you get entered into our weekly drawings, which I do every Wednesday. Our drawings are for a $50 gift card, three free pizzas and three drinks. There’s seven winners every week, and it’s been really great.”
Jan. 3, a ballon drop took place at GAM to signify the end of that 13 weeks, with customers attempting to collect and pop as many balloons filled with prizes as they could.
Cain said the program will start up again in early April, and she said she and her board wanted to do something for their customers and keep them coming into the store and shopping local.
“We thought it would be a nice reward for people who are shopping here and a fun thing to do for weekly drawings and winnings,” she said. “It kept people coming here, which is really awesome, and I just thought it was a really good way to keep the business here and also give our customers something fun to look forward to. It was really fun.”
Weekly drawings at Grand Avenue Market are done with a spinning wheel, which Cain said children particularly liked, as she saw them putting cards in for the drawing.
“It was really fun to do,” she said.
Cain said the rewards program had been in the works for some time.
“We had been waiting a while to start it,” she said. “We got all of our employees to wear our logo shirts, which is our little green rooster. It said ‘Ask me about the awards program,’ to get everyone real excited about it. Everyone was asking ‘What are you guys doing? What is this rewards program?’ It was really cool to get everyone questioning about it, and it was real exciting.”
The balloon drop itself had been planned for a couple of weeks, but Cain said the promotion was not known to customers until the balloons were dropped that Saturday afternoon.
“We had set up the balloons a week early to get people like ‘Oh what’s this?’” she said. “We hadn’t fully talked about the balloon drop to people at the end. We were just doing the rewards, and we were like there’s something exciting happening at the end. We didn’t really elude to what it was until we put the balloons up.”
Cain said putting the balloons in place for the drop took some time to say the least, but excitement built as customers were asking what the ballons were for and what was happening with them.
“Since it was right around New Year’s, everyone was asking if it was going to be a New Year’s Eve drop, and we told them ‘No, it’s going to be a Saturday where everyone can come down and get prizes,’” she said. “A lot of people seemed to think it was going to be a celebration of the new year.”
Cain said customers were later told of prizes, and she kept promoting the drop right up to the moment the balloons were released on Facebook. The balloons were released at 2 p.m., and as she continued to promote the event, Cain said her excitement continued right up until drop time.
“My mom came down to check it out,” she said. “I was really excited for it to be later in the day too to get people drawn in waiting for it to happen, waiting for the anticipation of the balloon drop.”
Cain’s excitement reached its peak shortly before 2 p.m., but she said she was not sure how many people would show up because of Jan. 3 being the weekend before children returned to school in USD 483.
“We didn’t know if people were going to be traveling or what, but when I looked outside and the parking lot was full and people were parking across the street, I was really excited to see everyone here and all of the kids who were here,” she said. “It got really loud, but it was really fun.”
As the balloons were released, Cain said GAM reached a state of mayhem, but she said much fun was still being had.
“Everyone just started going crazy grabbing,” she said. “There was no limit to how many balloons you could grab, so it was like try to pop as many balloons as you can to try to get a prize. They were popped fast. It was under 10 minutes or so, and people were popping them like crazy. The kids were just stomping on them. It was so fun.”
Naturally with hundreds of balloons being released, Cain said the volume inside Grand Avenue Market was quite loud at the time.
“It was exciting, but very, very loud, especially the stomping ones,” she said. “Those were popped very aggressive, but it was fun.”
Cain added she was excited to see everyone winning prizes.
“The little kids got to win toys,” she said. “We have some toys down here, and seeing some of the kids who want their parents to buy them a toy and they get told no up at the front win toys was really cute and fun. There were these three little boys, and them and their grandpa won so many things, all of the good stuff. They won a fruit tray. For some reason, the little boys were more excited about the fruit trays than the toys, which was really funny and adorable to watch. It was so fun. It was a really good day. It was so fun being down here.”
Cain said the store’s weekly drawings have helped with grocery bills as well.
“The people who have won the $50 gift cards have been so appreciative and love it,” she said.
With the next program not scheduled until April, Cain said customers now wait with excitement for more prizes.
Just as the weekly drawings have been helpful, so too Cain said was the balloon drop.
“We started it right around Halloween, and people were coming to spend more during Thanksgiving,” she said. “Every $10, you get a stamp, so people were spending $160, and they got 16 stamps. They almost filled up their card, or they filled their previous card up again and get a new card and fill that one up by the end of the week and have their name in the drawing a couple times instead of just once so your odds are a little bit better.”
Opened the early part of this decade after the town of Plains had struggled to get a new grocery store, Cain said Grand Avenue Market is succeeding quite well at this time, especially recently.
“We’ve been really busy,” she said. “On New Year’s Eve specifically, it was slammed here. People thought we were going to be closed, and we weren’t. It was great. It has been very busy.”
In addition to the rewards program, 2026 will see the return of Grand Avenue Market’s round-up program to help local organizations. Cain said in the past the program has provided much in the way of assistance.
“We did the round-up for the local Girl Scouts, the school council,” she said. “We just did one for Angel Tree. We took a break from that, but we’re going to be bringing that back. That’s helped a lot of our local community stuff like the school – all of the programs they do that might not get as much money as the sports. That’s helped a lot, and we really love doing that. We’re about keeping everything local and doing everything for the community at large, not just us.”
