Anonymous donor pays off layaways
CANTON — For Bysheba Brown, her Christmas took an unexpected turn when a selfless, anonymous donor paid off all of the Christmas layaways at the Walmart here last week.
Brown’s gift for her grandmother along with over 300 other layaways were paid in full. Walmart did not disclose the amount of the gift.
Having the wide-screen television for her grandmother paid off was an incredible surprise at first and Brown didn’t believe it until she went to verify for herself and walked out with the TV.
“It was such a blessing. I put the TV in layaway back in September, and my grandmother’s kids were going to come and get it out, but they didn’t have to because it was already paid for,” she said.
Brown wanted to personally thank the generous person for paying off the gifts.
“Thank you so much. You’ve really helped out a lot of families. This pandemic has caused a lot of people to not be able to do things they normally would or buy things they usually buy,” she said. “It’s a real blessing to have someone in your hometown come out and help families with Christmas. Thank you so much, whoever you are.”
Angel Davis, store manager, was directly involved with the process of the anonymous donor paying for everything.
She recalled the donor contacting Walmart back on Nov. 29, and once all the pricing was worked out, the donor came in the following Monday with the check. Once all the layaways were processed, the total number of accounts taken care of was 333.
After all the layaway gifts were paid, there was actually some money left over from the initial donation, so Walmart was able to donate toys to the Canton Fire and Police department, along with some food gift cards for Feeding America.
Davis added that no one at her Walmart has been a part of something so big that affected so many people at once.
“It made us all feel really good and very proud to be a part of this community,” she said. “Being able to put back into the community and tell these people that their layaways were paid off was very exciting. It takes a really, really big heart and a selfless person to do something like this.”