Durham Get and Go helps cashless customers with IOU board

Durham Get and Go employee Shannon Emerson works on the IOU board the store instituted when power outages made credit and debit card purchases impossible. (Andree Kehn/Sun Journal)

DURHAM — In a town where most CMP customers are without power, a convenience store running on generator power has instituted a policy of covering cashless customers’ gas purchases.

Three days after a massive rainstorm knocked out electricity in much of the state, Central Maine Power was still working on restoring electricity Wednesday.

The Durham Get and Go has no connection to the internet and has been unable to take credit cards since the storm took out power. The ATM in the store will not be operational until power is restored.

On Monday morning, two employees started putting local customers’ gas purchases on their personal employee charge accounts.

Store owner Donna Church, upon hearing of this, opened up a charge account IOU board for anyone without cash who wished to use it. Church has done this in the past when the town has lost power in snowstorms.

“The customers are like family to us,” said employee Shannon Emerson. “We see them every day.” Emerson was one of the two employees who started putting customers’ gas purchases on her personal account Monday morning.

Customers began returning first thing Tuesday morning to pay for the gas they had charged the day before. The store has also opened up its system for taking personal checks to all customers with identification.