An Horry County woman got a pleasant surprise Friday when she got notice that someone else paid off her layaway a Walmart store.
Lisa Cranford first got a text alert from Walmart that said her balance was now. When she called the Surfside Beach Walmart store to validate the message, she learned someone paid off the balance for several layaway accounts.
” It touches your heart I mean to know that there’s somebody out there that cares and that wants to help our community,” Cranford said. “I just say thank you, and it means the world to me. I’m just so touched I just can’t believe I was one of the lucky ones to get picked for this.”
Cranford put Christmas gifts for her grandchildren on layaway a few months ago. She said she was planning to continue to pay for them for a few more weeks.
“I just wanted to give a special thanks to this person because there’s so much bad going on in this world, that there are some really great awesome people in this world and that I really did appreciate this and I just wanted to pay it forward too, myself,” she said.
Because Cranford has layaway accounts at the Surfside Beach and the Garden City Walmart locations, the Garden City account was randomly credited when the “secret Santa” paid for the batch of balances.
She decided to pay the favor forward when she went to retrieve her grandchildren’s gifts in Garden City.
“He inspired me – or she – inspired me to go out and pay it forward to our community,” she said. “So hopefully I can make a difference in somebody’s Christmas too.”
Cranford said she hopes others will be inspired to do something – even something small – for others this holiday season. She said a lot of people were hurt by damage from Hurricane Florence, so a lot of people could use some extra help this year.
