MURRELLS INLET, SC (WBTW) – Local business owner, Gary Bingham is making sure the Grand Strand community has a happy Easter by giving away baskets filled with candy, stuffed animals and trinkets to anyone who needs them.
Bingham’s store, The Bargain Warehouse, received huge shipments of Easter candy and presents to sell to other businesses this year. However, once the coronavirus outbreak began, those businesses no longer needed the supplies. Bingham says he wanted to do something with the goods to help the community.
“I was sitting actually on Palm Sunday thinking what can I do as a business owner in the community to help others,” Bingham said.
Bingham and several volunteers began building Easter baskets and boxes and giving them to the community for free.
“When I first started, I thought I could do something for 50 to 100 families, and when I put the post out, within two hours it was shared over 1,000 times, and that’s when I realized we better get started,” Bingham said.
In two days, the group has given away more than 5,000 baskets to around 2,000 families for Easter.
Local, Evelyn Franks received four baskets for her family on Friday.
“It’s wonderful, it really is,” Franks said of the effort.
“I’m hoping that other business owners like myself will say, ‘I have an abundance of this, let me do that,’ and if we all do that as a collective group, then we’ll get out of this,” Bingham said.
Volunteers plan to give away 150 additional baskets at Strand Village Socastee for Meals on Wheels on Saturday from 10:30 to 11 a.m.
