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DARTMOUTH, N.S., December 19, 2008 – The presents under Dartmouth resident Sahar Gerami's tree are going to be a lot bigger and more plentiful this year, thanks to an early Christmas gift from BMO MasterCard and Ivanhoe Cambridge. BMO and Mic Mac Mall presented Miss Gerami with a giant gift card valued at $25,000 today, the Grand Prize in the bank's $25,000 Shopping Spree Contest which ran nationwide at 33 Ivanhoe Cambridge shopping centres across Canada.
Miss Gerami was automatically entered in the contest when she used her BMO MasterCard to make a $31.68 purchase from Chapters located at Mic Mac Mall. "At first we couldn't believe it was true, that we had actually won $25,000. When we verified it, we were so excited," she said.
Miss Gerami will redeem her gift card in a shopping spree at the Mic Mac Mall, whose merchants participated in the months-long campaign to promote the contest and encourage shopping traffic and purchases at their shops.
Miss Gerami said her family members will join her in the shopping spree. “Being able to share this blessing with my family is going to be the best gift of all. I've given everybody a budget and told them to just go out and shop ‘till they drop,” she said.
Mike Bonner, District Vice President, Nova Scotia, BMO Bank of Montreal presented the BMO MasterCard Shopping Spree cheque to Miss Gerami at a formal celebration with the staff at the BMO Mic Mac Mall branch. “We're absolutely thrilled that residents of Dartmouth are amongst the contest winners,” said Mike Bonner. All of the staff at the BMO branch congratulate Sahar Gerami and Patricia MacDonnell and thank them and all of our customers for making this campaign such a great success for us and for the merchants of Mic Mac Mall.”
Miss Gerami was chosen as the Grand Prize Winner from more than 260,000 eligible entries across Canada. 33 secondary prizes were also awarded– one to a winner from each of the 33 participating Ivanhoe Cambridge Shopping Centres across the country. Another Dartmouth resident, and Mic Mac Mall customer, Patricia MacDonnell, was awarded a $5,000 mall gift card as a secondary-prize winner in the contest.
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