A 92-year-old started walking around Lowe’s after a stroke, and eight years later the staff turned her 100th birthday into a storewide party
For the past five years, an Illinois woman has spent most of her mornings doing laps around the outer aisles of a home improvement store. Gretchen Sollo, who took up the routine after a stroke at 92, has now turned 100, and the staff at the Lowe’s in Bradley, Illinois, surprised her with a party just before the milestone, according to People . The Kankakee resident has logged an estimated 1,500 miles inside the store, walking three to four laps on each visit. She arrived for what she thought was an extended birthday walk, then found about 50 people lining a decorated aisle with a blue carpet and an arch of balloons. Some of the employees came in on their day off just to be there for her. Sollo’s son Hugh joined the crowd, and the team presented her with a cake and a custom Lowe’s vest of her own. Store manager Joe Jackson, who organized the celebration, even gave her the honorary title of “store mom,” as she had become a familiar face to just about everyone working there. The party was also the first birthday party of her life, by her own account. The Lowe’s crew says Gretchen
