Posted: Friday,December 16, 2011 11:48 am | Updated: 1:57 pm, Fri Dec 16, 2011.
AssociatedPress -
OMAHA, Neb. —
The youngfather stood in line at the Kmart layaway counter, wearing dirty clothes and worn-outboots. With him were three small children.
He asked topay something on his bill because he knew he wouldn’t be able to afford it allbefore Christmas. Then a mysterious woman stepped up to the counter.
“She toldhim, ‘No, I’m paying for it,’” recalled Edna Deppe, assistant manager at thestore in Indianapolis. “He just stood there and looked at her and then lookedat me and asked if it was a joke. I told him it wasn’t, and that she was goingto pay for him. And he just busted out in tears.”
At Kmartstores across the country, Santa is getting some help: Anonymous donors arepaying off strangers’ layaway accounts, buying the Christmas gifts otherfamilies couldn’t afford, especially toys and children’s clothes set aside byimpoverished parents.
Before sheleft the store Tuesday evening, the Indianapolis woman in her mid-40s had paidthe layaway orders for as many as 50 people. On the way out, she handed out $50bills and paid for two carts of toys for a woman in line at the cash register.
“She wasdoing it in the memory of her husband who had just died, and she said shewasn’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.
Deppe, whosaid she’s worked in retail for 40 years, had never seen anything like it.
“It was likean angel fell out of the sky and appeared in our store,” she said.
Most of thedonors have done their giving secretly.
Dona Bremser,an Omaha nurse, was at work when a Kmart employee called to tell her thatsomeone had paid off the $70 balance of her layaway account, which held nearly$200 in toys for her 4-year-old son.
“I wasspeechless,” Bremser said. “It made me believe in Christmas again.”
Dozens ofother customers have received similar calls in Nebraska, Michigan, Iowa,Indiana and Montana.
Thebenefactors generally ask to help families who are squirreling away items foryoung children. They often pay a portion of the balance, usually all but a fewdollars or cents so the layaway order stays in the store’s system.
Thephenomenon seems to have begun in Michigan before spreading, Kmart executivessaid.
The goodSamaritans seem to be visiting mainly Kmart stores, though a Walmart spokesmansaid a few of his stores in Joplin, Mo., and Chicago have also seen somelayaway accounts paid off.
Kmartrepresentatives say they did nothing to instigate the secret Santas or spreadword of the generosity. But it’s happening as the company struggles to competewith chains such as Wal-Mart and Target.
Kmart may bethe focus of layaway generosity, Yala said, because it is one of the few largediscount stores that has offered layaway year-round for about four decades.Under the program, customers can make purchases but let the store hold ontotheir merchandise as they pay it off slowly over several weeks.
The sadmemories of layaways lost prompted at least one good Samaritan to pay off theaccounts of five people at an Omaha Kmart, said Karl Graff, the store’sassistant manager.
“She told methat 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 themoney for it,” Graff said.
He called awoman 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 wasafraid their kids weren’t going to have anything for Christmas.”
“You know, 50bucks may not sound like a lot, but I tell you what, at the right time, it mayas well be a million dollars for some people,” Graff said.
Graff’s storealone 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 behonest, in retail, it’s easy to get cynical about the holidays, because you’rekind 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 Stearnesof Omaha also benefited from the generosity of a stranger who paid all but $58of her $250 layaway bill for toys for her four youngest grandchildren.
Stearnes saidshe and her husband live paycheck to paycheck, but she plans to use the moneyshe 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 customerswhose layaway orders were about to be returned to a Kmart store’s inventorybecause of late payments.
Storeemployees reached one beneficiary on her cellphone at Seattle Children’sHospital, where her son was being treated for an undisclosed illness.
“She wasyelling at the nurses, ‘We’re going to have Christmas after all!’” storemanager Josine Murrin said.
A Kmart inPlainfield Township, Mich., called Roberta Carter last week to let her know aman had paid all but 40 cents of her $60 layaway.
Carter, amother 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 willhave clothes for Christmas,” she said.
Angie Torres,a stay-at-home mother of four children under the age of 8, was in theIndianapolis Kmart on Tuesday to make a payment on her layaway bill when shelearned the woman next to her was paying off her account.
AssociatedPress writers Michael J. Crumb in Des Moines, Iowa; Matt Volz, in Helena,Mont.; and Jeff Karoub in Detroit contributed to this report.
NOTE: Remarkable, uplifting and heartbreaking all atonce. Not to spoil the mood, but as a point of comparison, interestedreaders might consider Googling the shocking (and appalling) charitable donation history ofUS Vice President Joe Biden. It's been widely reported and is easy research. In this case, comparisons, which are often invidious,aren’t.
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