For the more than 150 people with layaway accounts at the Toys "R" Us store in Bellingham, Mass., the spirit of the holidays just arrived in the form of an anonymous donor who paid for all their merchandise.
On Wednesday afternoon, an unnamed woman walked into the Hartford Avenue Toys "R" Us and told the employees that she would be settling the balances of the store's 154 layaway accounts with balances ranging from a few dollars to a few hundred. The total figure amounted to more than $20,000, but, as employees said, the woman didn't even bat an eye.
"If you have it, give it," she reportedly told the employees, according to the Milford Daily News.
Described as a local and a bubbly older woman, the layaway angel reportedly told employees that she would "sleep better at night" knowing that all those toys will be making their way to their young owners in time for the holidays instead of sitting on a shelf at the back of the store waiting for their buyers to pay the full amount.
"I thought, 'You have to be kidding me.' I almost wanted to cry," Linda, a woman from Franklin who spent $9 for a layaway purchase of cars and racetracks for her 10 and 11-year-old sons, says. "It was only $50, but to me that's a lot of money, and that someone would go and do that gave me chills. What she did was so caring and thoughtful. I feel like I was part of something special - touched by an angel."
Grafton-based Jason Wood, a man whose layaway items were paid for by the anonymous angel, says he was inspired by the gesture and decided to pay it forward himself. Wood says he plans to spend the money he was supposed to pay for the layaway purchases for his six-month-old and five-year-old daughters to buy holiday gifts for Toys for Tots.
"I wish there were more people like that," Wood says. "You've got to pay it forward. It's good karma."
Some 180 kilometers away in Auburn, another woman became Secret Santa at a Toys "R" Us store after paying $19,600 for the store's 125 layaway accounts. Just like the Bellingham woman, the Auburn angel barely flinched when she saw the five-figure amount. Last week, in Woburn, a man paid more than $1,200 for the layaway purchases of the eight people behind him in line.
"We have had many accounts of layaway Santas, layaway angels, just good Samaritans," says Adrienne O'Hara, spokesperson at Toys "R" Us. "Over the years, we've seen a lot of excitement and a lot of acts of good will."
One of those layaway angels is Greg Parady. While growing up, Parady's says he was a layaway kid himself, so he understands the struggles of families on layaway accounts.
"I know it affected people immediately. I mean they were getting text messages that payments were being made on their accounts while we were there and people were calling saying, 'I think there's a mistake,'" he says. "It was so special. It was really special."
