'Layaway Angel' With Terminal Illness Pays For 16 Struggling Families' Back-To-School Supplies At Kmart

It's like Christmas in September!

Sixteen families in Auburn, Maine, received a heartwarming phone call from their local Kmart last week. The store's layaway department called to let them know that an anonymous woman had paid all their back-to-school bills.

The "layaway angel" told the staff that she was terminally ill and just wanted to do something nice before she died, WCSH6 reported. In only 15 minutes she paid off 16 balances -- about $3,000 in cash -- and left.

"I wanted to cry," Kmart manager Joyce Beane told the Lewiston-Auburn Sun Journal. “It was that powerful. It takes something like this to make you think, 'Oh, my word. If I were facing the end of my life, would I take time to reach out and help people?'"

People who saw the anonymous woman told the paper that she appeared weak -- leaning on shelves as she moved throughout the store.

"This lady proved there are still good people out there," Rina Thibeau, one of the lucky 16, told WCSH6.

In 2011, a man from Laguna Beach, Calif., paid $15,919.61 worth of bills at a Kmart. Similar instances also occurred in Nebraska, Michigan, Iowa, Indiana, and Montana the same year.

H/T The Blaze