Chase the Ace creates business boom in Inverness

What started as a run-of-the-mill fundraiser for the Inverness Cottage Workshop and the local legion has snowballed into a phenomenon beyond anyone's expectations.

• CBC Newswill be livestreaming the draw on Saturday. Stop by our site beginning at 5:45 p.m. ATto see who will have a chance at drawing the ace!
• 7 things to know about Chase the Ace in Inverness

And while they may not have seen the storm coming, the 1,500 residents of Inverness, N.S., have been caught up in the whirlwind.

Here's a look at how a few of them have been affected by the crowds flocking to their small community, and what they think of the whole thing.

Inverness Cottage Workshop clients and staff

The Inverness Cottage Workshop is a non-profit vocational agency for adults with intellectual disabilities. Its 30 clients usually spend their days working in the centre's bakery, or in its other day programs.

Instructor Claire Brennan says things have changed. "Everyone comes to work at 8:30 a.m. Ticket making starts immediately, and it goes on until the clients go home at 2:30 p.m. And instructional staff stay an extra hour to continue making tickets."

She says they have more than 100 volunteers helping them to assemble the ticket packets now.

Ashley Cameron has been working flat out to keep up with demand.

"It's hard work, but then we get more people," she says. She's excited about how the fundraiser has taken off. "It will hit our goal and we'll have a bigger bakery."

Ashley and the others may be doing more ticket work in the future, too, Brennan says. Since the clients have so much experience now, they may start hiring-out their ticket-making services to other lotteries.

Budding entrepreneurs

Local kids have also been cashing in on the Chase the Ace crowds. On the last draw day, sisters Marley and Alexa Beaton set up a stand on their grandparents' lawn near the arena.

With help from their friend Avery MacKinnon, they made $300 selling baked goods and lemonade.

"It went really well," says Marley. "We sold out all of our cookies and stuff, and we sold out pretty much all of our lemonade. We had to go back and get some more."

They also took in another $200 in a donation jar for the food bank.

Marley says they weren't the only kids to catch the entrepreneurial fever.

"There was another person in our class, he was selling water and he was doing parking, and then another person in our class was doing Gatorade and stuff. And then there's Gillian Fraser and Rhonda Hartford they were doing parking and they made a lot of money."

Local businesses

Alec MacNeil's family owns the Village Grill, right across from the legion. He guesses they had 10,000 customers on the last draw day.

"It's insane," he says, "Very, very busy. The challenges are having enough staff. We had workers coming in on their weeks off."

He doesn't want to put a number to the profits, but says the Chase the Ace boom will make up for the quiet winter.

Kelly Neil is manager at the Downstreet Coffee Company. She says business has increased by about 25 per cent each Saturday for the past few weeks of the draw.

"We're armed and ready," she says. "We basically stock everything that we can, make sure we order plenty of supplies so that we get through.

"It's going to be over a million next week so who knows? Hopefully we don't run out of coffee!"

Shoppers and revelers

Not all businesses are benefiting. Staff at the Co-op say business has been down on draw days. The gridlock downtown prevents people from doing their usual shopping.

Evelyn MacDonnell has had to adjust her schedule. "I even go to the bank the night before, because I heard at one point they ran out of money at one of their ATM."

But she says the hassle is worth it for the money and the good times the event is bringing into the community.

"It's sort of a fun thing too, because you're meeting a lot of people you maybe haven't seen in forever. A lot of friends from the Sydney area and so on have come to stop by, and it's been really a social event for us."