A Mom Went To Payless For Three Pairs Of Shoes, But She Ended Up Buying The Whole Store

For most kids, September marks the end of summer vacation. It's that trying time when book bags and bus passes take the place of sunscreen and swimsuits. Fortunately, this season also brings with it something to look forward to: back-to-school blowout sales.

From clothing stores to school-supply outlets, every retailer seems to offer steep discounts on their stock to get local kids ready to go back to school. Naturally, most parents are quick to take advantage of these low prices.

Carrie, who was from Alma, Arkansas, was just one of many parents looking to stock up on school supplies before the summer of 2019 finished. As president of her school board, Carrie understood the importance of preparing her three kids for the year ahead.

One of the stops on Carrie’s list of back-to-school shopping destinations was the shoe store Payless. With the company closing its doors for good, she knew she could score some great deals on shoes.

Sure enough, all three of Carrie’s kids came away with brand new kicks. But before she could bring the shoes to the cashier, her nine-year-old daughter, Harper, pulled the mom aside to show her another pair that had caught her eye.

The shoes featured characters from Marvel's "Avengers" team, which may have made Carrie scratch her head. They were very different from the pair Harper had originally picked out. What drew her to this design all of a sudden?

Apparently, Harper had noticed that one of her classmates' sneakers looked too small for his growing feet, and she wasn't sure he could afford a new pair. The nine-year-old had hoped her mother would be willing to buy the shoes to give to the boy as a gift.

Touched by Harper's generosity, Carrie agreed to buy the shoes. But there was just one problem: she didn't know what size the little boy was. She decided to bring them up to the cashier with the rest of their purchases to see if they had any other pairs in stock.

As they chatted, Carrie jokingly remarked that she should just buy out the entire Payless for the sake of giving the shoes away. But the cashier didn't find the joke funny — he found it brilliant!

The more she thought about it, the more Carrie, too, began to see the real promise in her "joke." The cashier took down her number to give to his manager, and, sure enough, she got a call later that day with an offer to buy out the rest of the store's stock.

Seeing the good she could do, Carrie agreed to purchase the remaining 400 pairs of shoes. She arrived at Payless the next day with a small loading truck, though she quickly realized she'd need much more than a U-Haul.

Apparently, the store had received a shipment of an additional 1,000 pairs of shoes that morning, all of which the manager offered to Carrie. With her kids unwilling to leave them behind, Carrie managed to swing a deal for the new stock as well.

Loaded up with nearly 1,500 pairs of shoes, Carrie and her family began the painstaking process of sorting through everything. Sizes ranged from toddler all the way to an adult 13, though the vast majority wound up being shoes for kids.

With the entire stock accounted for, Carrie was left with just one more hurdle to overcome: distribution. The mother of three had no idea how to begin getting these shoes to kids in need, so she decided to try Facebook to see if any local volunteers could advise.

An outpouring of support flooded in from Facebook users in the community, each volunteering to help Carrie carry out her mission. Local churches soon hopped on board with further aid and donations, expanding the program beyond just handing out shoes.

Eventually, local businesses in the Alma area began pitching in, leading the community to start planning a special back-to-school event. There, needy kids could receive free shoes and clothes along with haircuts, eye exams, and other pre-school-year necessities.

Word of the Arkansas mom's kindness soon spread nationwide, with even the folks at Good Morning America taking notice. In fact, Carrie and Harper were invited to be guests on the show's "Strahan & Sara" segment to share the story behind their amazing mission.

Yet despite the attention she received, Carrie insisted that fame was never the end goal of her ambitious undertaking; it was all just a byproduct of buying a little boy a pair of shoes.

"In the grand scheme of things in this country, this is a tiny blip," Carrie explained of her mission. "But if it continues to grow and... it makes you do one little thing for that student fixing to go back to school then it matters to that one kid." One woman who shares Carrie’s desire to help others is Josette Duran. Like with Carrie, it all started when Josette's child noticed something alarming about one of his classmates.

At first, Josette was puzzled as to why her son, Dylan, kept asking for two packed lunches. How hungry could one kid be, anyway? But then she discovered what Dylan had been doing with the extra food, and she knew she couldn't ignore the odd behavior any longer.

While Josette and her son now live in a comfortable house, this wasn’t always the case. In 2016 Josette told Albuquerque-based ABC affiliate KOAT, “[Deprivation] hits home to me because a few years ago, me and my son were homeless.” Josette has since made it her mission to give back to others. And her son Dylan is often on the receiving end of her kind gestures.

One of Josette’s generous gestures included packing encouraging notes from time to time in Dylan’s lunch. Typically, the teen was given a sandwich, a bag of chips, a drink, and some fruit. Yet while that may seem like more than enough for a growing boy, there came a time when Dylan started asking for more.

To begin with, Josette pondered the request. She wondered, for example, whether her son was going through one of the spurts in growth that teenagers often experience. If he felt that he needed double the fuel, then, Josette didn’t mind — and so she started sending him to school with a second helping of lunch.

This went on for a while, in fact, before Josette finally decided to find out what was going on. One morning, as she stacked up the second sandwich, she asked Dylan why he was needing the extra rations, saying, “Are you not getting full, boo?” And although many may have been surprised at the 14-year-old’s explanation, it made total sense to Josette.

According to his proud mom, Dylan was after all the product of his upbringing. Josette revealed to Today, “I was taught if you can’t be nice, then you be extra nicer, and I’ve always raised my son to be that way. I’ve always taught him to be kind and help others.”

To explain the reason behind Dylan’s request, Josette made a Facebook video. And the reaction to the clip was quite astonishing, with the footage ultimately going viral and bringing worldwide attention to the mother-and-son duo as a result.

And during her Today interview, the mom further revealed what had motivated her to make her son’s actions public. She said, “We’ve been through some hardships together, so we know what that feels like, and we don’t want no one else to feel that way. So, we try to be proactive and help when we need to help. We don’t think twice about it.”

But what exactly was all the fuss about? Well, Dylan’s response to the question about needing two lunches was both heartbreaking and sweet. According to Josette, he said, “It’s for this boy. He only eats a fruit cup for lunch.” Then, once that was out in the open, Dylan apparently had a request for his mother. He asked, “Can you make [the boy] lunch too? I don’t think he has lunch money.”

Well, given her belief in being kind, Josette did not need asking twice. She didn’t hesitate to agree to Dylan’s request, and ever since she had made it part of her routine to pack double helpings of food. She described her answer to Today, revealing, “So I said ‘Sure’ [to Dylan], and ever since then it became my normal.”

Josette continued, “Dylan really is the most kindhearted and loving kid. When he asked me to make two lunches, I just did it.” And she was clear that she didn’t need any time to think about the request at all. She went on, “I didn’t ask any questions because – isn’t that what we’re supposed to do? We’re supposed to help people.”

It seemed that Dylan had become friends with a boy whose family had fallen on hard times. This classmate’s mom had become unemployed and could no longer pay for lunch at school. And news of this desperate plight had struck a chord with Josette, as it had brought her own previous struggles flooding back.

Talking to KOAT, Josette said, “This hits home to me, because a few years ago me and my son were homeless. I was living in my car, and I was washing [Dylan] in bathrooms. And we didn’t have food.” So, now that her troubles were long over, she felt that she was in a position to pay it forward.

For weeks, then, Dylan would go to school with two lunches in his bag. Eventually, though, the need for the second batch of food ended when the boy got government help. Josette later told Today, “I stopped making two lunches last Wednesday, and it feels kind of lonely not making two anymore.”

Word of how generous Josette had been eventually got to the mom whose son had been receiving the free food. She then got on the phone to Josette and offered to pay for what she had provided. But the kindly New Mexican was not interested at all in taking the stranger’s money.

At first, Josette was even a little bit nervous about meeting the mom in person. Explaining how the encounter had gone down on Facebook, Dylan’s mother wrote on Facebook, “[The other boy’s mom] says, ‘I know this isn’t much, but I just got a job, and I know you’ve been feeding my son.’”

It seemed feasible, too, that the other woman may have reacted negatively. In her social media post, Josette suggested why, writing, “Because in this day and age, when you try to help somebody, some people get offended by it. People aren’t used to kindness.” And the possibility of having antagonized someone else with her actions had made Josette anxious.

There was no such confrontation, and the other mom was simply grateful for the kindness that Josette had shown her son. Josette continued, “I didn’t want [the mom] to think that I was stepping on her toes or crossing boundaries, but she was very, very thankful and told me so. She told me how much she appreciated what we did.”

Eventually, the state stepped in, and Dylan’s buddy started to get lunch from the federal program. And Josette reflected on the whole affair while talking to Inside Edition in 2016, explaining, “Being kind doesn’t have to come in monetary form. Just know that if you’re having a good day, someone else is having a bad day, and you should fix that.”

But while Josette certainly walked the walk, she was humble about her actions. In her Facebook video, she noted, “I don’t think I did anything special.” In fact, in the mom’s opinion, such a kind gesture is just what she’d expect from anyone. She added in the clip, “I just think I did what a human being is supposed to do.”

Meanwhile, while some may have asked how the school could allow a child to go without food, Josette told Today that she didn’t blame the institution. Instead, she claimed, “That school would never let any child go hungry. They take care of everybody, but this little boy was probably too embarrassed. He didn’t want to speak up.”

And, unfortunately, Dylan’s friend is not the only one to struggle to get sufficient food. The No Kids Hungry Campaign says that in the U.S., 62 percent of educators report that children attend their classes in a state of hunger as they aren’t fed enough in their homes. The gap is made up a little by federal programs and donations.

Given this food deficit, Dylan and Josette’s kindness is especially stunning. And Josette, who had always been a huge fan of her son, was left bursting with pride in him. She explained as much on Facebook, too, saying, “My cup runneth over.”

Josette was also left with broader hopes that her story may inspire others. She said to Today, “It doesn’t have to do with lunch. It could just be saying, ‘Hi’ to someone or opening the door or saying, ‘Yes, ma’am’ or ‘No, ma’am.’ It’s just about practicing kindness whenever possible.”

Fortunately, at least one other individual took notice. After Jerry Fenton of Burlington, Iowa, saw Josette and Dylan’s story, he paid $700 to the elementary school that he himself had gone to many years before. And explaining his kind gesture, Fenton later told local ABC affiliate WCVB, “I am not a rich person by any means, but I had a little extra. And I thought, ‘Well, it’s going to go further helping others.’”