Five-year-old Bella-Rose Peachey loves helping her parents on their shopping trips to our Portsmouth store so much that she wants to work there when she's older – so when her dad Aaron told the store's community champion Danielle Dean that she wanted to dress up in an Asda uniform for her school's careers day she pulled out all the stops to give her a day to remember.
Danielle invited Bella-Rose in to have a go on the tills and arranged a uniform for her to wear to school – complete with her own name badge and lanyard.
Aaron says Bella-Rose – who goes to St Jude's School, in Portsmouth – hasn't stopped smiling or talking about her special day since!
Aaron, who works as a civil servant at Portsmouth City Council, said: "Bella-Rose came home and asked if she could dress up as an Asda colleague for her school's Aspirations Day.
"Other kids were dressing up as policemen, doctors, firefighters or being in the Army ... but Bella-Rose said she wanted to go dressed as an Asda colleague. I said to her that I couldn't really do that with the uniform being very specific.
"But her mum said why don't you just ring Asda Portsmouth and see what they say. I didn't really think anything would come of it but they were great – they gave her everything. Bella-Rose was over the moon and the school loved it too. I don't think they expected a kid to turn up in full Asda uniform.
Once Bella had finished school she popped into the store – still wearing her uniform – and Danielle let her go on the checkouts.
Aaron said: "Bella-Rose loved it. I pretended to buy some sweets and she was scanning it. The only thing she wants to do in Asda is work on the tills."
He says Bella-Rose was a little bit shy at first, but Danielle was great with her, making her very comfortable.
Aaron said: "We'd like to give a massive thank you to Danielle and the team at Asda Portsmouth – they have the best customer service team ever.
"They made Bella-Rose's aspirations day a massive success and put the biggest smile on her face. They were wonderful with her!"
Bella-Rose joins her three-year-old sister Marnie-James, Aaron and mum Jayme-Anne on their regular shopping visits to our Portsmouth store, but Aaron says the family don't know quite sparked her plans to work there.
"It's been an ongoing thing for the past six months now," he said. "All she wants to do is work at Asda when she's older. None of our family works there – we just shop there regularly.
"At home she's always playing shops with her sister. They always have a pretend till out, and pretend food and they buy and sell stuff to each other. Bella is always the shopkeeper!
"I said to her what about working in another shop, but she says no – it's got to be Asda!"
Danielle says it was a pleasure to help Bella-Rose.
She said: "Bella’s dad called me and explained that Bella wanted to go to school on their aspirations day as an Asda colleague and asked if we could help and, of course, we said yes.
"I found her a polo shirt, lanyard, name badge and water bottle – everything she would need to be the perfect Asda colleague.
"I asked her where she would most like to work in the store and she said checkouts, so we let her have a go at serving her dad. She loved being on tills and customer services. She was very excited about it all.
"She loved the fact that she matched my uniform and only has 11 years before she can get a job as an Asda colleague!"
