In Florida, ‘Layaway Santa’ makes Christmas come early

Last Saturday, financial analyst Greg Parady, 40, went into a central Florida Walmart planning to pick up some new bikes for an annual Toys-for-Tots charity drive held by his firm.

While he was there, he heard a customer express concern that she wouldn't be able to pay off her layaway account in time for Christmas.

Parady decided to help — and offered to pay off half of all layaway accounts with a balance of over $200 at the store, including accounts of customers already lined up at the counter.

In the end, the "Layaway Santa" paid $20,000 worth of charges on 76 accounts.

One young customer was so overwhelmed, she started to cry and had to sit down.

"Every time I looked over at her she would mouth the words, 'Thank you,'" Parady told NBC News.

"Everybody cried at one point or another because it was just, it was just amazing, and his wife and son were here, and it was like a family and you could tell he really cared," Walmart operations assistant manager Deb Davis told 9News.

"It was just a wonderful, wonderful thing that he did," she added.

Because the spending spree was a spontaneous one, Parady had to use three credits cards — and reassure his banks that the sudden charges weren't fraudulent ones.

"My controller had to stay on the phone with three different banks, they would approve it, two would go through, and then the automatic system declining it," said Parady. "She just kept flipping back and forth, it was going for a couple of hours."

"I can't believe (his credit cards) didn't melt he was running them so fast," Davis told Local 6.

Parady's incredible good deed made headlines everywhere. The Good Samaritan only hopes his story inspires others to give, too.

"I didn't intend for the attention but I hope it motivates other people," Parady told NBC News. "I hope everyone will use it as a tool to give in their own way. It doesn't have to be money, it can be time, or just something kind."

Cindy Nazzaro, the managing partner at Parady Financial, told The Villages Daily Sun that Parady's act of generosity didn't surprise her.

"I've known him for years and he just does things because he feels like doing them," she said. "It brought us all to tears...and made me realize we work in an awesome community. This is Greg's way of giving back to the community, paying them back for how gracious they've been to us."

Parady isn't the only "Layaway Santa" to help struggling families cover their bills this year.

So far, Walmart has tallied more than 1,000 instances of stranger paying down others' layaway accounts this season.

And in Shillington, Penn., a "Layaway Santa" who paid off numerous Kmart accounts inspired one mom to spend the money she'd been saving to pay off her account on a local child in need.