Mother Buys Out Remaining Shoes At 'Payless', Nearly 1,500 Pairs, To Give To Those In Need

Aug 05, 2019 by apost team

As Amazon and e-commerce have grown in popularity, more and more physical retail stores have been filing for bankruptcy and closing their doors. Sadly for fans of the brand, former retail giant 'Payless' is closing all of their stores in the US and Puerto Rico.

While this is unfortunate for those who loved shopping at Payless, it was great for people who wanted to take advantage of the store's liquidation sales and steep discounts.

For Carrie Jernigan of Fort Smith, Arkansas, the liquidation sale at her local Payless sounded like a great way to score some major deals on shoes for herself and her children.

Jernigan never thought that her innocent shopping trip would turn into a huge act of kindness that would take the internet by storm.

As they were perusing the sales, her daughter pointed to a pair of Avengers boys' shoes and asked her mother if she could buy them for a student in her class whose shoes were too small for his growing feet.

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Jernigan was happy to oblige. A lightbulb went off in her head and she wondered if she could purchase some more of the many deeply discounted shoes for other children in need.

"As I was checking out I just said 'how much for the rest of the shoes in the store,' almost joking and I could see the clerks, her face, her wheels start to turn and she finished checking me out. She said 'can I have your number?'" Carrie Jernigan told CBS affiliate KFSM. 

“Next thing I know a regional manager is on the phone asking me if I seriously want the whole store," she later wrote on Facebook. "I was thinking, 'what have I done? [My husband's] going to kill me.'"

Jernigan and the store manager worked out a deal for her to purchase approximately 400 pairs of children's shoes for a steep bargain.

But when Jernigan arrived at the store to pick up her purchases, a delivery truck showed up with hundreds of additional pairs of shoes. Jernigan's children began begging their mother to not leave the additional shoes behind.

If Jernigan's husband was going to be mad about 400 pairs of shoes, he was definitely going to be mad about what was to come.

At first, Jernigan was reluctant to purchase all of the shoes, as not all of them were for children. But after her kids reminded her that sometimes adults needed help as well, Jernigan decided to just bite the bullet and buy out the entire store.

After 12 hours of loading almost 100 boxes into a trailer, Jernigan was the owner of 1,500 pairs of shoes. The trouble was that Jernigan knew she wanted to donate all of the shoes to people in need, but she wasn't sure exactly how to do it.

Jernigan wisely turned to Facebook to solicit suggestions and the response from her community was overwhelming.

Jernigan's friends suggested dozens of different worthwhile organizations. The local middle school offered the use of its gymnasium for several days in August, allowing the local community to have a back-to-school event for kids who needed shoes and school supplies, which were graciously donated by generous Fort Smith residents.

Jernigan was emotional when she spoke to the local media at the back-to-school event.

“If you ask my kids what they want to be when they grow up, they say be kind, and so I don’t care what they do in life as long as they are kind and good people,” Jernigan told reporters. “And so it just reiterates to me that their hearts are in the right place and if it’s in the right place they can do amazing things.”

You never know where life will take you. A simple trip to a shoe store could lead to you spearheading your town's biggest charitable event. Show this story to someone who could use a little inspiration to go out there and be their very best.