This Walmart Clerk's Incredibly Kind Gesture to Distressed Customer Has Gone Viral
There are few more embarrassing experiences in public than the moment the grocery clerk rings up and bags all your items and you discover you left your wallet at home.
Wanting nothing more than to flee from the judging glares of the customers behind you in line, not to mention the cashier who now has to deal with the goods you won’t be taking home, you have to scramble to figure out what to do.
Sound familiar? Of course, it does, and it happens to the best of us, including an anonymous woman at the Princeton, Texas Walmart location. The only difference? Her cashier didn’t have an annoyed sigh and call for his manager. He did something amazing.
According to Laci Simms, who retold the incident in a now-viral Facebook post, the woman was “in obvious distress about her inability to pay.”
It’s not clear whether the woman didn’t have enough money, forgot her wallet at home, or something else. What we do know, however, is that the cashier, 19-year-old John Lopez Jr., took it upon himself to make things right.
“…When she had trouble paying her bill he stepped in and told her if she’d wait he would pay her total,” Simms said in her post. “Ya’ll, it was $110 dollars!”
Simms went on to describe how, though this might be the brightest example, this isn’t the only time Lopez has made the patrons of the Princeton Walmart smile: “If you have never had the pleasure of going through John’s checkout line at the Princeton Walmart, please seek him out on your next visit. He is always singing, upbeat, courteous, joyful and efficient.”
John’s incredible act of kindness spread all over the internet thanks to Simms, who said the young man “renewed [her] faith in humanity and the generation we are raising,” and wanted everyone to know what a blessing he is to the community.
“Tuesday night I was up until 11 looking at the comments on the post,” Lopez shared with CBSDFW. “I was like this can’t be real.”
“[The woman] started crying and I was like ‘okay I got you – I got you’,” Lopez said, explaining his side of the story. “I just felt in my heart that the Lord told me I had to help her.”
Lopez gave his parents the credit for raising him to have not only a strong work ethic but a kind heart: “My parents basically taught me if someone needs help you should be able to help them and if someone is down, bring them up.”
“I make it my goal to at least in one way make someone smile,” he said, and surely he met that goal when he saved the day for the woman in his line.
Amazingly, that’s not where Lopez’s story ends. To show their immense appreciation for his generous heart and sunny spirit, the Princeton community set up a GoFundme page to bless the young man.
“The bill was not a small one. No questions asked. He gave selflessly. It was made public,” reads the campaign description. “He touches a lot of lives on a daily basis. I’d like to give back to him for constantly giving himself to our community.”
As Lopez continues to work at Walmart with the goal of saving up for college, the whopping $35,000 the campaign has already raised is sure to be a welcome boost.
If Lopez was faithful and generous as a young teen with $110, just imagine what his future will look like!
