Shocking ‘Secret Santa’ Pays For Layaway Items At Walmart

Do Santa Clause really exist? He does for the people of Everett, Pennsylvania. Christmas arrived early in Pennsylvania as "Secret Santa" pays $46,265.59 worth in layaway at a local Walmart in Everett.

It will indeed be a happy Christmas for the 194 shoppers who had their balances paid by a mysterious person identified as "Santa B". According to Ryan Kennedy, manager of the Walmart store in Everett, he wasn't expecting "Secret Santa" to pay off the entire cost of Walmart's layaway items on hold. He received an anonymous call, and on December 7, the store received the check. He started to call the shoppers to inform them that their debts had been paid off.

"Some individuals were just brought to tears when they were notified about it," Kennedy told CNN. Walmart allows customers to put the items that they want to buy on hold and let them pay it off over a specified amount of time. Especially during the holiday season, shoppers use layaway to buy Christmas presents for their loved ones, so they don't have to buy all of them at one time.

Many of the items brought by the shoppers are Christmas presents. One shopper, Christa Morton, told CNN that she was completely surprised to get the message when she got home that her Christmas layaway was already paid for. Another shopper, Sandy Terry, bought an Xbox for her son. She feared that she can't pay her layaway balance because of her piling medical bills.

According to UPI, this is the third consecutive year this has happened. In the past two years, "Secret Santa" paid off layaways at two Harrisonburg stores last year and at a Mechanicsville location in 2014. "I would just be curious as to what made them choose us, and let them know how grateful we are for the gesture, and how much it meant to the customers that we have been able to serve," Kennedy said

"Secret Santa's" identity remains a secret. The only give away of his identity is that all the checks were signed by a man. "When customers quietly pay off others' layaway items, we're reminded how good people can be," Walmart said in a statement.