DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Everything Else... Anonymous Santas Pay Off K-Mart Layaways

Wow! What a great story, and what a nice thing to do for people in this tough economy!

Anonymous donors pay off Kmart accounts – USATODAY.com
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2011-12-15/layaway-santa/51980922/1?csp=34news

OMAHA (AP) – The young father stood in line at the Kmart layaway counter, wearing dirty clothes and worn-out boots. With him were three small children.

He asked to pay something on his bill because he knew he wouldn't be able to afford it all before Christmas. Then a mysterious woman stepped up to the counter.

"She told him, 'No, I'm paying for it,'" recalled Edna Deppe, assistant manager at the store in Indianapolis. "He just stood there and looked at her and then looked at me and asked if it was a joke. I told him it wasn't, and that she was going to pay for him. And he just busted out in tears."

At Kmart stores across the country, Santa seems to be getting some help: Anonymous donors are paying off strangers' layaway accounts, buying the Christmas gifts other families couldn't afford, especially toys and children's clothes set aside by impoverished parents.

Before she left the store Tuesday evening, the Indianapolis woman in her mid-40s had paid the layaway orders for as many as 50 people. On the way out, she handed out $50 bills and paid for two carts of toys for a woman in line at the cash register.

"She was doing it in the memory of her husband who had just died, and she said she wasn't going to be able to spend it and wanted to make people happy with it," Deppe said. The woman did not identify herself and only asked people to "remember Ben," an apparent reference to her husband.

Deepe, who said she's worked in retail for 40 years, had never seen anything like it.
"It was like an angel fell out of the sky and appeared in our store," she said.

Most of the donors have done their giving secretly.

Dona Bremser, an Omaha nurse, was at work when a Kmart employee called to tell her that someone had paid off the $70 balance of her layaway account, which held nearly $200 in toys for her 4-year-old son.

"I was speechless," Bremser said. "It made me believe in Christmas again."

Dozens of other customers have received similar calls in Nebraska, Michigan, Iowa, Indiana and Montana.

The benefactors generally ask to help families who are squirreling away items for young children. They often pay a portion of the balance, usually all but a few dollars or cents so the layaway order stays in the store's system.

The phenomenon seems to have begun in Michigan before spreading, Kmart executives said.
"It is honestly being driven by people wanting to do a good deed at this time of the year," said Salima Yala, Kmart's division vice president for layaway.

The good Samaritans seem to be visiting mainly Kmart stores, though a Wal-Mart spokesman said a few of his stores in Joplin, Mo., and Chicago have also seen some layaway accounts paid off.

Kmart representatives say they did nothing to instigate the secret Santas or spread word of the generosity. But it's happening as the company struggles to compete with chains such as Wal-Mart and Target.

Kmart may be the focus of layaway generosity, Yala said, because it is one of the few large discount stores that has offered layaway year-found for about four decades.

The sad memories of layaways lost prompted at least one good Samaritan to pay off the accounts of five people at an Omaha Kmart, said Karl Graff, the store's assistant manager.

"She told me that when she was younger, her mom used to set up things on layaway at Kmart, but they rarely were able to pay them off because they just didn't have the money for it," Graff said.

He called a woman who had been helped, "and she broke down in tears on the phone with me. She wasn't sure she was going to be able to pay off their layaway and was afraid their kids weren't going to have anything for Christmas."

"You know, 50 bucks may not sound like a lot, but I tell you what, at the right time, it may as well be a million dollars for some people," Graff said.

Graff's store alone has seen about a dozen layaway accounts paid off in the last 10 days, with the donors paying $50 to $250 on each account.

"To be honest, in retail, it's easy to get cynical about the holidays, because you're kind of grinding it out when everybody else is having family time," Graff said. "It's really encouraging to see this side of Christmas again."

Lori Stearnes of Omaha also benefited from the generosity of a stranger who paid all but $58 of her $250 layaway bill for toys for her four youngest grandchildren.

Stearns said she and her husband live paycheck to paycheck, but she plans to use the money she was saving for the toys to help pay for someone else's layaway.

In Missoula, Mont., a man spent more than $1,200 to pay down the balances of six customers whose layaway orders were about to be returned to a Kmart store's inventory because of late payments.

Store employees reached one beneficiary on her cellphone at Seattle Children's Hospital, where her son was being treated for an undisclosed illness.

"She was yelling at the nurses, 'We're going to have Christmas after all!'" store manager Josine Murrin said.

A Kmart in Plainfield Township, Mich., called Roberta Carter last week to let her know a man had paid all but 40 cents of her $60 layaway.

Carter, a mother of eight from Grand Rapids, Mich., said she cried upon hearing the news. She and her family have been struggling as she seeks a full-time job.

"My kids will have clothes for Christmas," she said.

Angie Torres, a stay-at-home mother of four children under the age of 8, was in the Indianapolis Kmart on Tuesday to make a payment on her layaway bill when she learned the woman next to her was paying off her account.

"I started to cry. I couldn't believe it," said Torres, who doubted she would have been able to pay off the balance. "I was in disbelief. I hugged her and gave her a kiss."

I would love to be wealthy enough to do this.Great story.Thanks for sharing it.

I have to amend Jules' oft-seen quote, at least for the duration of this thread:

"[some] People are no damned good."


Good news is happening all around us- every day. I'd love to see more stories like this published for mass consumption. Who knows? maybe our cynical, jaded society might develop a taste for it... and wouldn't that (by extension) make us all a little better?

Thanks, Y.... this story is the best gift I've received this year.

This story seriously has me bawling and inspired at the same time.

good story..

This is awesome!! Thanks for sharing.

Awesome.. I can't afford to do this for a a lot of people, but I guess I can help one family.., So, it's off to walmart today.. maybe I can help someone..

inspiring story.. well, it sure inspired me anyway

That is wonderful. This country if full of kind hearted and generous people. Glad to see them get some press this time. This is a fantastic idea because it helps people who are actually trying, not just standing there with their hands out.

Love it!

Good to hear the kind hearted are still forthcoming with generousity, even in these tough and cynical times.

My kind of story , I just love happy endings

I got teary-eyed as well, and I nearly lost it at:

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Store employees reached one beneficiary on her cellphone at Seattle Children's Hospital, where her son was being treated for an undisclosed illness.

"She was yelling at the nurses, 'We're going to have Christmas after all!'" store manager Josine Murrin said.

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What wonderful, wonderful people. I'd love it if we could hear stories like this every single day.

Quote:

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What wonderful, wonderful people. I'd love it if we could hear stories like this every single day.

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***BUMP***....

This thread NEEDS to stay at or near the top until the holiday season is over.....

Quote:

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That is wonderful. This country if full of kind hearted and generous people.

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Yes it is... The wonderful part of this, is that you get to see the smile and thankfulness of the person you helped...very humbling...

We help more often than what people realize....Putting money in the red bucket,while the bell person rings it and wishes you a Merry Christmas and thanks you.. When we drop off items at the Good Will / Salvation Army..Donating to a Charity...People come to the rescue of people in need daily..

We may not see the persons that benefited from that..The thought of knowing it was helping someone...always made me feel good.

I like smiling at a stranger and saying " Hello " As simple as that is...it's affect is a good one..

Quote:

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This is a fantastic idea because it helps people who are actually trying, not just standing there with their hands out.

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God rewards the ones who help..the ones in need..

Christmas is a powerful time of year for spreading the joy of Christs Birth and his love for us..The Spirit of Christmas..celebrate...365.

I dropped off 8 bags of stuff to the Salvation Army today. They sent a guy out to help me unload everything, and when I wished him a Merry Christmas, his face just lit up and he got this enormous smile while looking almost stunned as he wished me one back.

I would guess that he doesn't hear that too often in whatever circumstances he finds himself in.

Anyway, that kinda made the early part of my day.

Yep, those are nice. My departments do that every year with a family or two. We buy presents for everyone in the family and buy all the fixings for the Christmas dinner. It's a lot of fun.

And the epidemic has hit NE Ohio!

Layaway angels pay off accounts at Kmart, Walmart stores in Northeast Ohio | cleveland.com
http://www.cleveland.com/business/index.ssf/2011/12/layaway_angels_pay_off_account.html

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- When she saw the Dora the Explorer couch and the toy dog show up on the receipt, Tammy Pistore nearly wept.

The store manager for the Avon Walmart was ringing up one of the 23 layaway accounts that a stranger was paying off this month - his way of spreading $8,800 worth of Christmas cheer.

"That was the most heart-touching part. As he was paying off the individual accounts, I could see the slips coming off. I could see the individual items," Pistore said Friday. "The small random acts of kindness from our great customers . . . if I had to say one word, it would have to be amazing."

And like most others performing these acts of kindness, he asked to remain anonymous.

Nationwide, so-called layaway angels have popped up at stores, paying off accounts full of toys that customers had set aside for the holidays. A car dealer in California paid off nearly $16,000 in accounts. In Baltimore, someone paid off more than $20,000 in layaway accounts.

Walmart brought back layaway, a system where people can have the store hold onto merchandise until customers can pay off the accounts, this year for toys and electronics. So store managers said nearly all of the accounts paid off have contained large numbers of gifts for children.

Pistore said the donor in Avon initially inquired about paying off a few accounts and asked for help in choosing the ones with the most toys in them.

"We went through a few of the accounts, and he asked, 'How can I just pick one or two?' " Pistore said. That's when he decided to pay off the entire bunch.

Not all of the gifts have been as huge, but even the small numbers add up. At the Kmart store on Lorain Road and 150th Street, a store manager said about 10 customers came in to pay off portions of layaway accounts. He estimated that the gifts saved 20 families a few thousand dollars in total.

Officials at Sears Holdings, parent company of both Sears and Kmart, said donors had paid off $450,000 in layaway accounts at its stores nationwide. The largest was the Baltimore donation, but several large ones were made in Nevada and California as well.

In Cleveland Heights, Walmart store manager Brian Zeit said benefactors started showing up Tuesday.

"A lady came in and paid off about $1,300 on layaway," Zeit said. "The next day, a gentleman came in and paid off about $1,000 worth of layaway and spent $1,000 on gift cards."

The donor had his school-aged children hand those $50 cards out to random customers around the store, Zeit said. On Thursday, he returned and paid off the remaining $1,700 in the store's layaway accounts.

Since the first stories about layaway angels began appearing last month, store managers said they've had several people come in to make gifts, large and small.

"People understand the times we're going through, and they just want to help," Zeit said. "People are putting up some serious money. I think it's fantastic."

In Avon, Pistore said she had one of her employees call customers with layaway accounts while she rung up the totals. Some customers hung up, assuming the call was some sort of Christmas scam. Pistore said many of them called back later to confirm the story with the store.

"We had a lot of tears,"she said. "Customers were overjoyed. A lot of them just couldn't afford" the gifts that they had set aside.

Pistore said the largest account paid off had $2,100 left on it. That one was full of toys.

My mother-in-law went to pick up her layaway, and guess what! Someone paid off 13 accounts, including hers. I cannot wait to do this next year for someone else.

Merry Christmas to all of you!

Great read, Ytown! So much good stuff never gets knowed.