Ellisse Campbell, assistant brand manager of stouts and Malta at Red Stripe (right), presents the cash prize cheque to Venekia Thompson (centre) who is supported by her mother, Madgelyn Thompson (left).
Nineteen-year-old Venekia Thompson, a final-year student of the University of the West Indies, western Jamaica campus, is thanking her lucky stars after becoming one of the first winners in the Malta Back-to-School Scratch and Win competition. Thompson, who hails from Rhine Park in Montego Bay, said that with the financial windfall she is now one step closer to completing her bachelor’s degree.
“I feel really good about the win. School is coming up in two weeks and this will help greatly in paying for my tuition,” expressed Thompson, who is studying accounting and operations management.
The win, she said, is greatly appreciated and will help her progress towards obtaining her degree without financial strain.
“This is exactly the kind of impact Malta wants to make,” said Ellisse Campbell, assistant brand manager of stouts and Malta at Red Stripe. The objective of the promotion is to make back-toschool preparations less stressful for both students and parents. Outside of the weekly cash prizes, Campbell said Malta has given away 10 Samsung tablets and through a partnership with Quaker Oats,consumers also had the chance to win one of five HP laptops.
“We are all about refueling our customers, so we wanted to do something that would make a meaningful difference, and we felt easing the burden of back-toschool expenses was a clear win,” said Campbell. “We collaborated with a few partners to offer some very attractive prizes, and based on what we saw here from [these] winners, our consumers are really excited about the promotion.”
In partnership with JMMB, Malta offered a grand prize of $500,000 towards the tertiary education of a lucky student. Other prizes in the sweepstakes included weekly cash prizes of $50,000 for back-to-school cash (15 winners); $15,000 for school fees (40 winners); and 20 book vouchers, courtesy of Kingston Bookshop, valued at $15,000 each.
