Kohl's Brings Much Needed Jobs to Merced | ABC30 Fresno

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By ABC30

Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Fresno, Calif. The store is having its official grand opening at 7 a.m. Wednesday morning. A ribbon cutting at 6:45 a.m. and the public's invited.

The Merced store is part of /*Kohl's*/ nationwide expansion. It's opening 37 stores this fall, many in California.

Tom Lee is just one of the 127 newly employed Kohl's associates at the /*Merced*/ location. Until this job came along, lee was an out-of-work student struggling with bills for 8 months. "Working a lot and school so I mean it's working pretty good and I'm paying my school fees so it's great, it's great."

While the new employees are happy about their new source of income, shoppers are excited about having another place to find bargains.

"They have really, really good deals on everything. Especially their cookware and all that kind of stuff, just every day things that you need," said Cynthia Zarate of Merced.

"We're just excited about the store opening and I got a couple coupons in the mail and so I came here to use 'em," said Erica Carr of Merced.

The sound of sales is once again filling up the space Mervyn's used to occupy at the Merced Mall. Mervyn's closed up shop in December last year and Kohl's was quick to move in.

Over the weekend at the store's soft opening, 70 shoppers waited in line to be among the first inside.

"The community is extremely excited about us being here. Um, through the whole entire process, we've had people stopping at the doors, asking 'When are we opening? Can we come in?'" said Kohl's Manager Irene Garcia-Munoz.

Kohl's will offer grand opening specials throughout the store. They're open until 11 p.m. so there is plenty of time to take advantage of all the deals.

This is the fourth Kohl's in the Central Valley. There are two in Fresno, one in Visalia.