LYNCHBURG, Va. – Have you ever gone to pay for something and realized you didn’t have your wallet? That’s the worst feeling, right?
It happened to a Lynchburg woman who was shopping at Kroger on Wards Road, but what happened to her next doesn’t always happen for the rest of us.
Asia Graves had only been with Kroger for two weeks and was ringing up groceries when a woman walked up to the register with a full cart.
“As she got to pay for it, she asked if we had Apple Pay. I told her we didn’t,” Graves said. “She said she was going to the car to look for her card.”
By the time the woman came back inside to tell Graves she had left her wallet at home, Asia had already paid for her groceries—about $50 worth.
“I didn’t expect her to react like she did. I just thought it was something to just do for her,” Graves said. “She wasn’t having a good day already.”
The woman was so moved that she went and told everyone about Grave’s kind gesture on Facebook and it blew up, getting more than a thousand likes.
“I was sitting at home with my family, scrolling through Facebook like we do. That’s when the Living in Lynchburg page popped up and I saw the word ‘Kroger,’” said Store Leader Hayleigh Gray. “I thought, ‘Oh gosh, I have to read this.’”
Gray has been with Kroger for 15 years. She hired Graves and was honored to hear she’d gone above and beyond for a customer.
“I’m honored to know she chose us for a place to work,” Gray added. “She is a perfect fit for our team and models customer service and what we work toward day in and day out.”
The story didn’t end there. The next day, the woman came back to the store to find Graves and paid her double what the groceries cost and gave her a gift basket and a letter.
“I wish I would have brought it. She was just saying how I’m going to get blessed one day,” Graves said. “She said she didn’t know that there were young people out here that did that. I really want to thank her for that.”
Sometimes when we give, it comes back to us. Graves’ act of kindness is paying off.