Layaway Angels

I can remember, many many many years ago, being so grateful for the concept of layaway, especially at Christmastime. I could go shopping early in the season to ensure I found the gifts my daughter wanted most, and then being able to make weekly payments to make sure they were under the tree Christmas morning. It was particularly helpful the year she wanted a Little Tikes Kitchen and matching table and chairs - not only because the set was so expensive, but also from a storage perspective!

And while layaways are convenient, they don't always account for life getting in the way of our plans. You know about life, right? Life is that unexpected car repair, that bout with the flu that forced you home sick for a week, or the sudden doctor's bill that accompanied it. I can remember doing a lot of "creative financing" in order to juggle money around in the months of November and December in order to retrieve those elusive gifts from the back rooms of K-Mart and Wal-Mart.

Then a few years ago, K-Mart scaled layaways back to only during the holidays and Wal-Mart did away with them completely, pointing to the amount of giftcards that people were buying instead of actual gifts. Of course, like every pendulum swing, it has to swing back, and - when the economy took a major hit - layaways are now back at not only the two aforementioned stores, but even stores like Target, Kohl's, and Toys-r-Us have joined the trend.

Unfortunately, in this economy, that still doesn't always guarantee that a parent is going to be able to pay off that precious stash of gifts - not when unemployment is still so high.

Enter the Layaway Angels.



In a trend that started last Christmas and is cropping up again this year,  random strangers have been walking in to their local stores and paying off  layaways, - asking specifically that they be ones that contained lots of toys. One K-Mart in Arizona had a gentleman pay off 20 layaways, totaling more than $1600! Even the company themselves has gotten in on the trend, paying off one layaway per store per week through out the holiday season.

But- my favorite one is this - Toys-r-Us has committed to making a $200 donation to Toys4Tots EVERY TIME a layaway angel visits one of their stores to pay off a stranger's account.  Their rationale for that dollar amount? It's the average layaway in their stores.

For more about Layaway Angels - check out this article on HLN. 

But each of you can be holiday angels, too - right from the comfort of your own home. Just a $5 donation to Toys4Tots can make such a difference in the eyes of a child. And, along with the warm, fuzzy, "heart too large" feeling, we're even going to send you a gift of stories written by over 40 authors who also want to help out in the way that they can.