Marmel.com

It’s the K-mart equivalent of throwing an extra chunk of change into a toll booth.

Be an angel.

I am off to do this tomorrow.  Gift a gift to a stranger.

Victor, N.Y.— In the current economic climate, more and more people are opting to enroll in layaway programs at stores like Kmart, especially during the holidays.

The program allows people who don’t have enough money to pay for their items up front to make small payments until the item is paid off in full.

 But at stores across the United States, “layaway angels” are landing at counters, offering to pay off the remaining balances on layaways for children’s toys.

 “I really think it’s just the Christmas spirit,” says Chloe Williams, a layaway associate at the Victor Kmart. “The holiday spirit is affecting everyone.”

 At the Victor store alone, twelve layaway balances have been paid off by six different anonymous people.

“They don’t give us their name,” says Williams. “We don’t know anything about them and we couldn’t find them even if we wanted to. They want to pay off someone’s layaway with a bunch of toys. That’s the only requirement. It has to be a bunch of toys.”

Layaway associate Cathy McKenna was at work when a man came in and paid off the layaway balance for an unemployedmother.

 “He just wanted to pay off someone’s layaway and he didn’t care who it was as long as it had toys or little children’s clothing,” McKenna recalls.

 McKenna says she had the pleasure of breaking the news to the mother that her bill had been paid.

 “She just told her children that morning that they weren’t going to have Christmas until the second week in January,” says McKenna. “So when we called her and she was very, very appreciative. She started crying. She was really, really happy. “

 “Layaway angels” have also landed at Kmart stores in Chili and Webster.

The anonymous angels have paid as little as $50 for a bill and as high as $600.

“Talk about restoring faith in humanity,” says Kmart shopper Amy Hickey. “It’s sort of a cliché, but it does really warm yourheart and make you think that there are still good people in the world.”

Most of the time the “layaway angels” use cash and there is no way to track them down.

“They don’t give us their name,” says Williams. “We don’t know anything about them and we couldn’t find them even if we wanted to. They don’t want anything from us. They just want to make sure that it’s paid off and then they leave. They’re just wholesome goodhearted people. It’s just nice to see that. It’s refreshing.”

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