BEAUMONT, Texas — A Beaumont woman wants to spread some good news, and thank a kind stranger for a random act of kindness.
Sarah Wilcox says the man paid for her's, and several other's groceries at Wal-Mart on Dowlen Road in Beaumont Tuesday evening. It happened at around 4:00 p.m.
Like many others, Wilcox isn't able to work right now because of the coronavirus.
"I'm at home with my kids taking care of them and doing what we need to do and trying to home school everybody and trying to just get through this time so I'm currently without a paycheck," Wilcox said.
With four kids at home, Wilcox says a coffee pot is a necessity. When she noticed hers starting to go out recently, she and her daughter, Haley, decided to go to Walmart to get a new one.
Wilcox grabbed her coffee maker and was headed toward the self-checkout station, when she was stopped by the anonymous helper.
"I started hearing this guy yelling, 'mam excuse me mam,' so I kind of just instinctively turned to look, and it's this man doing that 'give me' gesture with both his hands and walking towards me," Wilcox explained.
Unsure of what was going on, Wilcox says he then grabbed the coffee maker out of her hands.
"Says I'm going to pay for you, turns around scans it on his little register that he's using, hands it back to me and says god bless you have a great day," Wilcox said.
Wilcox says she stood there, "dumbfounded" as he handed the coffee maker back to her, then the man proceeded to turn to another woman with an infant strapped to her chest, and a toddler in tow. He then began taking items out of her cart and ringing them up.
"It was like clothes for her kids and groceries, whatever she had," Wilcox said.
After he finished paying for that woman's items, Wilcox says he then turned to a man, who also had his kid with him, and proceeded to pay for their cart-load of groceries.
"Paid for everybody's things, I don't know how many people he did this to before me," Wilcox explained.
The other shoppers and Walmart employees were shocked by the kind gesture. It's something she's still trying to process.
"Most people aren't even getting a paycheck right now so for him to spend that much of his own money to help other people I just thought was amazing," Wilcox said.
Wilcox says the man never even stopped to introduce himself, but he's someone she'll never forget.
"He was just in plain clothing T-shirt whatever he wasn't even dressed up just plain every day clothes, looked like a normal every day Walmart shopper," she said.
Wilcox couldn't even put into works how grateful she was for his random act of kindness. She says it's a burden lifted for her, and her family.
"That's now money that I'll be able to keep put aside for something else, and not have to worry about what am I gonna do without coffee," Wilcox said.
Wilcox says she thanked the man several times at the store, but she doesn't feel she was able to properly let him know how much it meant to her. She hopes he see's this story, and understands the impact he made.
"Even if we're not able to find out who he is, for people to know that this anonymous person did this great dead, and maybe he'll be watching and he'll see how grateful we were and just know that it was a great thing he did," Wilcox said.