Sharron Pechek thought that she would have to go hungry. She had no idea why her card was declining.
The store, Cub Foods, in Maple Grove Minnesota, was incredibly busy.
The employees at the checkout were having to work as fast as possible to stop a long line from building up.
But when an 85-year-old, Sharron, arrived at the checkout, something went wrong.
When she tried to pay for her purchases, her card kept on declining. Soon, she started panicking.
If she didn’t get the groceries, what would she eat? She was reliant on social security and was only just scraping by.
Sharron told KARE11:
“The tears started to come down, because I thought ‘I’ve got four big bags of groceries,’ and I thought… ‘now what am I going to do?'”
Luckily, a cashier had noticed Sharron’s distress.
Annie Sorenson, the cashier, knew that she couldn’t let this customer leave without her basic groceries.
She reasoned that if the customer had been buying luxuries, like alcohol, then it would have been no big deal. But Sharron was buying things like bread, vegetables and meat.
“An elderly lady was at the lane in front of me and I noticed she had a look of distress on her face,” Annie explained to KARE 11.
She continued:
“I said, ‘I’m not going to send you out here without your groceries. That’s just not right. I’m going to take care of this for you.'”
Annie called up her manager, Krista Ponting, and explained what was happening. Ponting walked up to Sharron and said that the groceries were on the store.
Sharron couldn’t believe her ears. In fact, she began crying even harder. But these were tears of happiness.
And the employees’ kind actions didn’t end there. Another employee carried the groceries to Sharron’s car and loaded them into her trunk.
And then Annie hugged Sharron before she drove home.
Soon, Sharron was with her husband, Ray. She told him what had happened and how she was so grateful to the store.
Sadly, Ray was not at their home. Ray suffers from dementia and recently had no choice but to move to a memory care facility. In fact, this was the reason why the credit card wasn’t working. It was in Ray’s name, and when Sharron had tried to update his address, the company canceled the card.
Luckily, Sharron called up the credit card company and explained their situation.
Making purchases on the card should not be an issue for Sharron again. And just in case, she’ll always bring two cards to the grocery store from now on.
Sharron and Ray’s daughter heard about what happened. She then called up the supermarket and attempted to pay for their groceries.
But the store wouldn’t hear of it.
A news team then interviewed Sharron. She was clear that she wanted others to learn from her experience.
Sharron said:
“I hope people look at this and say, ‘Boy, including myself, we should be more giving also.'”
The woman’s words are so true. Let’s face it, getting through life is hard. We all need help from time to time. Luckily, Sharron found help when she needed it. But if others hadn’t been so caring, that may not have happened.
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