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Pictured left to right looking at picture - Joe Darrah(TOPS Pulaski store manager), Mike Brady (Two Minute Shopping Spree winner), Caroline Brady, Vinny Lobdell Jr.(President of HealthWay | PURE Global and co-owner Kallet Theater), Liz Krisanda (executive director JDRF CNY). Jennifer Wilson (development coordinator JDRF CNY), Lynn Hy (director of Philanthropy Food Bank of CNY), Philip Brady. The Michael Brady family of Fayetteville won a two-minute shopping spree from Tops Friendly Market at a JDRF fundraiser in Pulaski. Friday they donated spree to the Food Bank of Central New York. From left to right, Tops Pulaski store Manager Joe Darrah, spree winner Michael Brady, Caroline Brady, Vinny Lobdell Jr., president of HealthWay| PURE Global and co-owner of Kallet Theater, Executive Director of JDRF CNY Liz Krisanda, JDRF Development Coordinator Jennifer Wilson, Food Bank Director of Philanthropy Lynn Hy and Philip Brady.

(submitted photo)

A Central New York family turned one donation into two to help medical research and feed dozens of hungry families.

It started when Michael Brady of Fayetteville bid $1,300 at a Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation fundraiser at the Kallet Theater in Pulaski for a two-minute shopping spree at the Tops Friendly Market. He won the bid, then turned around and Friday donated it to the Food Bank of Central New York.

Brady said he saw the donation as a way to pay it forward.

"The community has been good to me and I'm just grateful to be in a position to donate the shopping spree," he said. "It was a great event."

Brady's 14-year-old son Philip has juvenile diabetes and the original donation at an auction at a JDRF fundraiser supports that group's efforts to find a cure for diabetes, Brady said.

He had thought about giving the whole shopping spree to one needy family, until a friend suggested a donation to the food pantry would help more families, Brady said.

The Food Bank was thrilled, said Lynn Hy, director of philanthropy at the Food Bank of Central New York, which serves 11 counties Central and Northern New York. The $1,574 worth of staples collected went to the Pulaski Community Food Cupboard.

"It was so generous of them," she said.

Then Tops helped to make the shopping spree go further. Normally, the store limits people who win shopping sprees to taking only three of any one item, she said. Since it was for the food pantry, the store allowed her and Philip Brady to grab cases of items as they raced through the aisles Friday morning, Hy said.

Store employees staged the aisles so that food pantry staples, such as cases of pasta, cereal, canned vegetables and tuna fish, were in easy grabbing distance, she said.

The final bill: $1,574 worth of staples that were immediately dropped off at the Pulaski Community Food Cupboard.

Contact Charley Hannagan by voice or text at 315-470-2161, by email, on Facebook at Neighbors West or on Twitter @charleypost.