Terminally ill ‘layaway angel’ pays for families’ back-to-school supplies

Sixteen struggling families received unexpected phone calls from a Central Maine Kmart last week: their layaway accounts had been paid off by an anonymous stranger.

"Everybody wants to go back to school with new clothes," said Auburn Kmart store manager Joyce Beane. "Now 16 more families can do that."

All of the families had fallen behind on their payments.

Beane told WCSH 6 that a terminally ill woman told store staff that she wanted to do something kind for others before she died.

"She was here about 15 minutes. She paid off 16 the layaways in cash, about $3,000. Then she said I'm not feeling well I need to leave," recalled Beane.

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"I wanted to cry," Beane told the Sun Journal. "It was that powerful."

Rina Thibeau, an Auburn grandmother, was one of the 16 people who benefited from the generosity of the "layaway angel." She was on her way to the store to make a payment when she received a call from the store.

Thibeau told WCSH 6 that she uses Kmart's layaway program to buy gifts for local needy children through a charity she founded. Last year, she helped 85 families.

"So many other kids, this woman is helping and she doesn't even know it," said Thibeau. "When I talk about it, It's like a dream."

"It takes something like this to make you think, 'Oh, my word. If I were facing the end of my life, would I take time to reach out and help people?'" Beane said.

This is the second "layaway angel" to bless shoppers at this particular Kmart. In 2011, a man and his two children paid off every outstanding layaway balance in the store just before Christmas.

"There are good people in the world," Beane told the Sun Journal. "It's nice to run into them every now and then."