PORTSMOUTH — David Perschy zoomed up and down the aisles of McKinnon's Market & Super Butcher Shop on Lafayette Road on Saturday morning loading up his cart with everything from turkeys to toilet paper.

PORTSMOUTH — David Perschy zoomed up and down the aisles of McKinnon's Market & Super Butcher Shop on Lafayette Road on Saturday morning loading up his cart with everything from turkeys to toilet paper.



Perschy was one of three finalists in the $500 shopping spree hosted by McKinnon's and the Portsmouth Herald/Seacoast Media Group. He had exactly four minutes to make his selections and not much time to do the math to see if he was coming close to the $500 mark.

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And while it was Perschy who won the contest, the real winner was Seacoast Family Food Pantry, to which the Portsmouth resident donated his winnings. After basking in the glow of winning, Pershy generously said he would donate his loot to the pantry. McKinnon's and the Portsmouth Herald are matching his donation.



McKinnon's aisles were crowded with qualifying contestants before the store's opening at 8 a.m. Saturday. Three names were chosen as top contenders. Along with Perschy, Stan Abucewicz of York Beach, Maine, and John Kardash of Stratham were chosen.



Ten more contestants won a $20 gift card to the store.



Then the fun started. The three men were brought to the middle of the store and each had four minutes to load up their carts with the one coming closest to $500 to be declared the winner. The winner would also get to keep their merchandise. They shopped one at a time and were advised of how much time was remaining as they filled their carts, putting the pressure on.



Perschy, who said he checked out the layout of the store Friday night "just in case," seemed to have it all mapped out. He knew exactly what he wanted and chose a variety of foods including meats, sodas, frozen foods and paper products.



Each contestant left his goods to be rung up and didn't know how much they were worth until all three men shopped.



Next up was Abucewicz. He said he "never shops," and it kind of showed.



He plunked down a few cuts of meat, then headed for the freezer and pulled out a pack of frozen shrimp. He grabbed some bread and a pie and checked out some cakes.



Sheri Keniston of Portsmouth, who was watching the shopping, had a good laugh.



"Here you have three men who probably never shop," she said. "I can't believe he just picked up a pie."



When Kardash stepped up to the cart, he never left the meat aisle, throwing in steaks, ribs, roasts and anything else he could. There was a three-item limit on each product for it to count. His cart was completely full of meat.



The receipts were tallied and Perschy was the winner, coming in at $491.16.



Abucewicz, the careful shopper, spent just $287.85, and Kardash's meat wagon came to $910.21. They both won a $100 gift card to the store.



Perschy said he was "nervous" but that he did have fun.



The event was the brainchild of John Basham, single copy sales manager for SMG, who was trying to think of a new promotion in September. He remembered a television shopping spree show that was a big hit several years ago. He ran the idea by Eric Boucher, McKinnon's director of marketing.



"We kind of jumped all over it," Boucher said.



So a game board was inserted into each copy of SMG's Seacoast Sunday on Sept. 8. A limited number of game boards were also available at SMG's offices at Pease International Tradeport. Each day, from Sept. 9 to Oct. 6, participants were asked to match a slogan to its product.



For example, if the slogan was "the quicker picker upper," the product name Bounty was written into the appropriate day's square on the game board. Completed game boards were turned in by Oct. 11.



"We had about 400 game boards sent in," Boucher said. "And 200 of them qualified for the shopping spree."

A full version of this story will follow