Celebrates grand opening of Jackson, N.J. location.
Wawa Inc. celebrated the grand opening of its newest New Jersey store in Jackson, on Nov. 22, and officially announced its statewide partnership with the New Jersey Lottery and the addition of offering lottery in all New Jersey Wawa stores.
Located at 329 North County Line Road in Jackson, N.J., this Wawa marks the 30th Wawa store in the state to have state-of-the art, self-service lottery vending machines installed—and signify Wawa’s official commitment to roll out these vending machines to all 210 additional Wawa stores in the state of New Jersey.
Lottery Vending Machines
Wawa is introducing statewide lottery ticket services to customers through self-service vending machines that feature all lottery games including: Powerball, Mega Millions Instant Tickets, and Holiday instant games.
Wawa has self service lottery machines in all 212 Pennsylvania and all 67 Virginia stores. During the past year, contributions as a result of ticket sales in Wawa stores to older Pennsylvanians and Virginia schools have reached more than $37.2 million in Pennsylvania. Wawa will install self-service lottery vending machines in a total of 40 Wawa stores in New Jersey by year end with a full rollout statewide scheduled by Memorial Day 2014.
In New Jersey, Lottery proceeds benefit higher education scholarship programs, school renovations, school nutrition programs, veterans homes and other institutions. In fiscal year 2013 the Lottery’s contribution to the State was more than $1 billion.
“We welcome Wawa to our family of business partners as they broaden lottery availability and playing excitement to the public,” said Carole Hedinger, executive director of the New Jersey Lottery. “Wawa, like the lottery, is focused on providing an outstanding and consistent customer experience. Expanding our reach will assist the Lottery in providing more funding to the State’s Lottery beneficiaries.”
The grand opening celebration kicked off at 2p.m. on Nov. 22. Wawa was joined by local officials, customers, charitable partners and community members for a ribbon cutting ceremony, and celebration of Wawa’s milestone customers, history and values. The grand opening featured a sampling of Wawa products and an exciting charitable Hoagies for Heroes hoagie building competition between the Jackson Mills Firefighters and the Jackson Police Department.
“We couldn’t be more excited about opening this new store in Jackson, and adding the excitement of our announcement to expand lottery services to all Wawa NJ customers,” said Chris Gheysens, Wawa’s president and CEO. “We’re thrilled to not only share our unique brand of appetizing convenience throughout the entire state and to build on our community partnerships, but to continue to innovate and evolve with offerings like the first ever self-serve lottery vending machines. For our New Jersey customers, we are excited to partner with the New Jersey Lottery to ’give their dreams a chance’ with this new exciting convenience.”
“New Jersey is our home market, and it’s been amazing to see how quickly its residents have come to rely on us to simplify their lives and become their home away from home,” added Gheysens. “We couldn’t be more excited to continue to open new stores—and add more value and convenience to our customers through the addition of lottery.”
The event concluded with a charitable Hoagies for Heroes hoagie building contest as the Jackson Mills Fire Department and Jackson Police Department faced off in a battle of bravery, skill and sandwich-making expertise. Each team was challenged to see who could build the most hoagies in three minutes in the traditional Wawa way. Wawa concluded the Hoagies for Heroes competitions by presenting checks for $1,000 to the charities of each of the heroes’ choices.
Each new Wawa store will employ nearly 60 associates, all of which are new positions brought to the area through the development of the stores. Associates in these full and part-time positions will not only receive competitive salaries and health benefits but will have the opportunity to be enrolled in Wawa’s employee stock ownership plan.
