Family buys out shoe store, donates shoes to needy

By mbrooks on July 26, 2019

FILE – A pedestrian walks by a Payless Shoe Source store on April 5, 2017 in San Francisco, California. Kansas-based discount shoe retailer Payless Shoe Source has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and will close nearly 400 of its stores. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

By Matthew Brooks

Payless Shoe stores closing across the country. One family in Arkansas took advantage of their local Payless closing to help out the needy.

Carrie Jernigan told 5 News in Arkansas that she saw her daughter saw a pair Avengers shoes. Her daughter asked if she could buy them for a friend at school.

Then Jernigan got an idea.

“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 said.

The next day, the shoe store’s district manager called Jernigan.

The district manager said that buy out the remainder of the stock.

Jernigan told 5 News that she originally thought she would be buying 200 – 300 shoes.

Then the show store got another shipment.

Jernigan ended up buying almost 1,500 shoes.

She has decided to throw a back-to-scho0l bash for her community where she will give away the shoes.