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Flash mob at Lucky’s Market in Colorado suburb helps raise over $30,000 for flood relief

Last month, shoppers at a suburban Colorado grocery store found themselves surrounded by singers.

A flash mob — singers, a choir, and even a high school drum line — at Lucky's Market in Longmont, Boulder County, interrupted shoppers with their rendition of The Beatles' "Help."

And "help" they did, helping to raise more than $30,000 for OUR Center, a local nonprofit that provides food, clothing and other critical services to underprivileged families in the area, in less than a month.

In the aftermath of the September floods, donations were more sought after than ever.

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The video was viewed more than 26,000 times — and brought 2,000 people to a website to promote the charity.

"It was just a creative way to help them (the OUR Center) reach new donors and build awareness and gather what they really need — cash," Phil Caragol, one of the flash mob organizers, told the Longmont Times-Call.

Edwina Salazar, executive director of OUR Center said that while it's hard to trace which donations were direct results of the flash mob — at least $10,000 in donations have been linked to the video thanks to donors' notes — $30,000 has been donated since the video was uploaded, an increase over what the organization saw during the same period last year.

"We have no way of knowing if every donation was from that project. If donors didn't designate that on the form, then we don't know how they discovered us," Salazar said.

"We do know that it was a highly creative campaign and we are having a more successful year this year."

Donations for the flash mob's "Help" campaign will go to buy food for the needy.