Do you remember me telling you about this last month? Wawa had a clever idea for a vexing problem. The pandemic and shutdowns of 2020 brought about a nationwide coin shortage. It’s been so bad that the United States Mint put out this video.

Businesses everywhere were asking for people to either pay by card or with exact change. Signs were plenty asking for customers to cash in their coins for paper money.

Wawa took it a step further. Being a smart company they offered incentive. They started a nationwide contest in which you could enter a sweepstake to win free sandwiches for a year. The only catch to their ‘Shortis for a Year’ game was you had to cash in some change to participate.

That’s where Steven Leventhal comes in. NJ.com reports he is a regular and loyal customer to the Wawa in Monroe at Butcher Road and Route 33. He saw that they needed coins and he had some at home. Some as in $300 worth. Steven says he was told they particularly needed dimes and it so happened that $100 of the $300 was all dimes.

In exchanging it for paper money he was given a small freebie like a free drink, and also a raffle ticket. With that raffle ticket Steven along with a whole lot of other loyal customers registered on Wawa’s website for the sandwich contest. A computer randomly drew the winner out of thousands of entries and it was Jersey’s own Steven Leventhal.

I guess we know what Steve will be having for lunch every day until this pandemic is over.

The post above reflects the thoughts and observations of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Jeff Deminski. Any opinions expressed are Jeff Deminski's own.

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