LAYAWAY ANGELS

Marilyn Garcia worked two jobs. She did not even have enough money to buy a Christmas tree. She agreed to buy at least the Hello Kitty car for her four-year-old granddaughter. She paid down on the car and placed it in a layaway plan at a Walmart store in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. On the deadline date for the final payment, she called the store to request an extension.

Upon receiving her call, a Walmart employee told Marilyn that no extension was necessary – “you could pick up your granddaughter’s present – it was all paid for in full.” Marilyn is one of hundreds of customers on layaway plans whose balances were paid off by persons who chose to remain anonymous.   

According to a CNN report, an unknown male customer paid $50,000.00 to cover some 100 layaway accounts at that Walmart store. At another Walmart store in Lake City, Florida, an anonymous customer gave $59,000.00 to cover about 300 accounts. Still at another Walmart store in Chiefland, Florida a customer donated $51,000.00.

Layaway customers at Toys ‘R’ Us stores also benefitted from the Christmas generosity. Last year, some 600 customers benefitted. So far this year, at their store in Bellingham, Massachusetts, an anonymous woman paid $20,000.00 for every layaway item. She reportedly told the store manager on her way out of the store, “If you have it, give it...” Her contribution was able to clear 275 layaway accounts.
Recently I learned that there is even a non-profit organization that is devoted to helping people in need to buy their holiday gifts. Pay Away the Layaway was created in 2011 to assist families that may be unable to afford to complete payment on their layaway plans - donors are referred to as “layaway angels”.

Lee Karchawer, a 30-year old marketing professional from New York City, began soliciting donations through the website he founded, payawaythelayaway.org. The average donation he gets is $25. The first year he raised $2,000 from 75 people. Last year he raised $5,000 from 135, and this year he hopes to receive $8,000.

For Dave Wilson, 65, who went from living on a poor farm in Iowa to owning 17 car dealerships in Orange County, Calif., it's a way to give back. Every December, he gives his wife Holly, a Kmart receipt for her birthday. On it are listed hundreds of transactions, all the layaway account balances he's paid off at his local store. In 2011, it was 260 accounts to the tune of nearly $16,000. In 2012, it was more than 320 accounts at $18,000. This year’s figures are still to be calculated.  

Wal-Mart said it has tracked more than 1,000 instances so far this season of strangers paying down others' layaway accounts. Kmart said strangers have paid more than $1.5 million in other's layaway contracts over the years. 

One of the interesting features in all of the cases with layaway angels is that the donors have chosen to remain anonymous. They get no promotional mileage, nor tax benefits from their generosity. Other than helping someone who may need help, these donors know nothing more about the recipients. 

This practice of giving purely for altruistic purposes benefits more than the recipients. Among other things, the practice fosters altruism in the wider society. The increasing cases of layaway angels this Christmas would seem to confirm this view.

In what Christians refer to as The Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said to those listening, “But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you” (Matthew 6:3-4).

In essence, our giving must never be the grim and self-righteous outcome of a sense of duty, still less must it be done to enhance our own glory and prestige among men – it must be the instinctive outflow of a loving heart. We must give to others just as Jesus gave Himself to us. 

Earlier in the Matthew passage, Jesus taught that when one gives, it should not be done as when hypocrites give – they give to be seen and to be acknowledged. Interestingly, the English word hypocrite comes from a Greek word which means actor – one who is playing a part.

One of the things Jesus is also saying about giving in secret, is that what is secret to us, is not a secret to God, who knows all things. “This God,” Jesus contends, “will reward appropriately.”

The joy Walmart customers displayed when their bills were paid, pales, when compared with the joy authentic layaway angels will display after the God who knows all secrets, rewards them openly.