STEMMING from an idea to get its fans involved in doing something meaningful during the pandemic, Church’s Chicken has managed to pull off another successful singing competition this year, raising the bar in terms of winning prizes.

“We started the singing contest last year and most persons were home and we were wondering what we can do to get our fans engaged and get some activity going on our page,” Manager of Customer Service and Marketing, Donita Persaud, told the BUZZ this week.

When the contest was held for the first time last year, the public feedback and support were so good that the team at Church’s decided to organise the contest again this year.
They’re still not sure, though, if the contest will become an annual event, especially as things seem to be getting back to normal so far as the Coronavirus pandemic is concerned.
Last Wednesday, the three winners this time around collected their prizes at a simple ceremony at the restaurant’s Camp Street branch.

John Brummel came off as the first place winner with a grand prize of $500,000. Second in line was David Duncan with $200,000, and third was Peponi Yearwood-Cummings with $100,000.
The competition, which was launched on July 8 and ended August 12, had four judges. The two internal ones were Director of Training, Dawn Braithwaite and Director Jennifer Cipriani, while the two external ones were Guyanese musicians Samuel Medas and Gavin Mendonca.

There were four rounds in the competition and the winner from each round went to the finals.
The judges were also given one ‘wild card pick’ each, to give to someone whom they were impressed by but who did not manage to win the round.
The public, too, was allowed a ‘wild card pick’ by inputting the name of the person of their choice on the restaurant’s Facebook page.

Sharing further on this year’s competition, Persaud related: “We had a lot of persons sending in their videos. Of course, they were required to have the products of both Pepsi and Church’s in their video frame. We found a lot of talented persons from all over the country who participated.”

While Pepsi was a co-sponsor at a later point in the competition last year, it joined Church’s at the inception this time around.
“We decided to go a little bigger this year since the response was so good last year and we raised the bar on the prizes,” Persaud shared.