JAMES CITY COUNTY — Wawa opened its new Ironbound Road location with a ribbon-cutting ceremony and festivities Wednesday morning.
Wawa employees were joined by local officials, including supervisors Ruth Larson and Barbara Null, and County Administrator Scott Stevens, as well as members of the police and fire departments.
Doors opened at 8 a.m., with free T-shirts for the first 100 customers. The store will also be offering free hot coffee in any size through Aug. 24.
Shannon Brooks, Wawa Area Manager, kicked off the ribbon cutting at 8:30 a.m., introducing the local management team and highlighting some of the company’s history and current promotions.
She was followed by Ruth Larson, chair of the James City County Board of Supervisors, who added, “Thank you so much for having us here today, having us involved, involving our wonderful police and fire for all that you’re going to do for the community. You are truly giving back to several organizations that make a difference to our citizens, and we appreciate it.”
The company highlighted its work with the American Red Cross. Check Out Hunger, Children’s Miracle Network, Breakthrough T1D, LLS, the Special Olympics and the USO. Ryan Lightner, Development Director, Peer-to-Peer Programs for Breakthrough T1D also spoke briefly about the organization’s work.
The highlight of the event was a Hoagies for Heroes hoagie-building competition between the James City County Police and Fire Departments. Given 24 hoagie rolls, each team had two minutes to assemble the most hoagies. Each team assembled the maximum 24 hoagies, resulting in a “rock-paper-scissors” tiebreaker between Fire Chief Ryan Ashe and Police Chief Mark Jamison officiated by mascot Wally Goose, with the fire department taking home the hardware.
Wawa will also donate $1,000 on behalf of each team to their local charities, with the police donating to Jamestown 4H and the fire department to the James City County Connect program.
George Wood founded the Wawa Dairy in 1902 in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, and opened the first Food Market in 1964. Today, the company remains family- and employee-owned, with over 1,100 stores across 11 states.
