A Florida police department is giving back this holiday season — and has helped pay off 26 layaway accounts at Walmart.
Dade City Chief James Walters and his staff walked into the Walmart in his city and asked to pay off all of the layaway accounts the store had Monday, according to Dade City police.
The department says they paid off more than $4,300 worth of layaways.
Walters then called each customer to share the good news.
That’s when he says the real magic happened.
“Each call made a lasting memory, not only for the recipients, but the givers, as well,” Walters said.
“We want to thank our anonymous benefactors who, along with our Dade City Police Foundation, do so much for us all year long,” Dade Police wrote on Facebook. “This support is magnified even more at this time of year when so many are in need of help.”
Michelle Marchante covers the pulse of healthcare in South Florida and also the City of Coral Gables. Before that, she covered the COVID-19 pandemic, hurricanes, crime, education, entertainment and other topics in South Florida for the Herald as a breaking news reporter. She recently won first place in the health reporting category in the 2025 Sunshine State Awards for her coverage of Steward Health’s bankruptcy. An investigative series about the abrupt closure of a Miami heart transplant program led Michelle and her colleagues to be recognized as finalists in two 2024 Florida Sunshine State Award categories. She also won second place in the 73rd annual Green Eyeshade Awards for her consumer-focused healthcare stories and was part of the team of reporters who won a 2022 Pulitzer Prize for the Miami Herald’s breaking news coverage of the Surfside building collapse. Michelle graduated with honors from Florida International University and was a 2025 National Press Foundation Covering Workplace Mental Health fellow and a 2020-2021 Poynter-Koch Media & Journalism fellow. Support my work with a digital subscription
