Kentucky man buys out local Kmart, donates everything to charity

A Kentucky man bought out his local Kmart — only to give everything to charity.

Rankin Paynter, owner of a jewelry exchange, headed to his local Kmart just days before it was set to close, looking to purchase some discounted display cases for his business.

While on the hunt for deals, he asked the store manager what was going to happen to the unsold items. The manager responded all the merchandise would go to Kmart "power buyers" on the last day of business.

So Paynter became a power buyer, filling out an application to purchase the goods. On the day before closing, the store called him and offered him all remaining merchandise, on one condition:

"They said you can buy it all but you must sign a contract and take everything left in the store," Paynter told ABC News.

And that's just what he did.

Having seen the toll hard economic times have taken on his jewelry customers — people are often selling their jewelry just to make ends meet — Paynter came up with a solution that was more community-friendly than just re-selling the goods for a profit.

"It's bad nowadays. I just told (the clerk) let's just give it away to charity," he told LEX18.com.

On May 6th, Paynter spent six hours buying and loading up $200,000 worth of stock — and then gave it all to Clark County Community Services, which serves low- and middle-income residents in the area.

"This will be the first time we will have enough coats and gloves for everybody," said Judy Crowe, the director of the non-profit organization.