A lucky Chinchilla resident has won $5,000 of vouchers as the major prize for the Use Your Melon buy local competition.

Rachel de Jonge was drawn on Christmas Eve for the Chinchilla Community Commerce and Industry’s (CCCI) campaign to encourage local spend in their community.

This long running campaign has been rewarding Chinchilla shoppers for years, with three winners sharing in $7,000 worth of prizes in 2020.

The campaign gave away $2,000 to Sharenlee Butler and Luke Cass in October and November, with each of them taking home $1000 worth of vouchers.

The Christmas Eve barrel contained over 20,000 entry forms which equated to more than half a million dollars ($500,000) spent in the Chinchilla economy.

This figure is in addition to the $8,000 already spent in local retailers through the Origin sponsored Community Spirit Challenge.

CCCI president Shannon McDermott said the draw was a fantastic opportunity for the organisation to show the value and support of their members.

“This campaign is one of the ways we can encourage people from the local region to spend money within Chinchilla,” he said.

“This has been one of the biggest years ever for the campaign, and I hope the businesses appreciate the support this campaign provides to them.”

CCCI Manager Robyn Haig said they wanted to do something different this year to take the pressure of providing the major prize off of local retailers.

“The CCCI reached out to some of our larger members, and Origin, MPC Kinetic, and QGC all offered their support for the 2020 campaign,” she said.

“It is thanks to these sponsors we are able to offer this great prize to reward spend in our local retail businesses.