I was listening to Glen Beck the other day and he mentioned the "Tyler Perry Challenge". Apparently Tyler Perry paid off all of the Christmas Lay-Aways at 2 different Wal-Mart stores. This reportedly totaled over $400,000.00. Glen Beck is also donated to random individuals in this way. I did this myself at my local Wal-Mart where I shop, and it went without a hitch. A friend of mine, however, was not as lucky. At the Wal-Mart where we shopped, the employee didn't think they could do it without a name, so he just found a lady in line to pay that appeared to need help and stood beside her until her turn came up and paid for some of her children't presents. Wal-Marts have different dates when they stop taking lay-away payments, so you may have to check for yourself to see if it's too late to do this. Merry Christmas
Paying it forward is a wonderful movement...and it can be something as simple as coffee at a drive through, paying for the person behind you. But this movement - to help people pay off their lay away - is really lovely. Merry Christmas!
When you give money to big charity a lot of the money goes to more ads for the charity. This pay it forward idea is a good way to make sure you are actually helping someone rather then paying someone else to help people for you, and they do a crappy job.
Yeah, I remember when the United Way Scandals first hit - I stopped donating to UW altogether after that. But I found that there are small local charities out there that operate purely at the street level that don't have a lot of overhead so that almost all of what you donate actually goes TO the needy and not to advertisements - heck, the guy who runs the charity I run the school drive for looks like he's homeless himself and drives a beat-up hooptie instead of a limo that the guys running United Way drove. But this Lay-a-Way gifting sounds nice as well and more power to anyone doing so!
Instead of freeing up cash so people can spend more on their Christmas addiction, I buy heroin for the homeless. Is that same?
I like the idea of seeing someone in line you think would like some help and paying for it. I could see scammers putting tons on layaway at tons of stores hoping some get paid for. I do like small charities though. I know some great people involved in our local santa program.
