A lot of Atlanta area families got a very welcome surprise recently thanks to the kindness of actor, writer, and filmmaker Tyler Perry. The multi-faceted performer took it upon himself to travel to a pair of Walmart stores in Atlanta with the objective of making the holiday season much less stressful for area families.
When he was there, he paid off all of the current layaways at both stores. The total was an astronomical $432,635, which Perry said was money well spent. The fortunate beneficiaries of Perry’s kindness only have to come in, pay the final penny of their layaways, and pick up their items.
Although Perry was hoping to do the good deed anonymously, word got out about what he had done, so he decided to go to Twitter with a video acknowledging the rumors.
“Merry Christmas to everybody!” Perry exclaimed in the video, a big smile on his face. “I know it’s a hard time, a lot of people are struggling, and I’m just really, really grateful to be able to be in a position to do this.”
Of course, the people who had their layaways paid off were beside themselves with gratitude. Among the happy responses that Perry got was from the Walmart Twitter page itself. The comment from the account read: “Anonymous or not, we hope you know that you just made Christmas for so many families. You went above and beyond. Thank you.”
What’s more, Perry’s kindness seems to have started something of a trend. Musician Kid Rock followed Perry’s lead, saying that he was inspired to do the same thing at a Nashville area Walmart. The rock star’s tab was about $81,000 for the kind gesture. We’ll have to see if more stars decide to continue this amazingly kind trend as the holidays continue their approach.