Chicago Bears: Walmart mishandles donation from Khalil Mack
By Tim Healey
Chicago Bears’ linebacker Khalil Mack did something good for charity, but it appears to have gone wrong.
The Chicago Bears’ star made an $80,000 donation via his foundation to a Walmart in his Florida hometown of Fort Pierce. The money was meant to pay off purchases made on layaway.
Apparently, the store didn’t handle the donation properly. A spokesperson for Walmart told a local news site that the “transaction” was flawed but that store employees didn’t “misuse” the money. The local news site initially reported that the money had been misused.
Details aren’t fully clear, but it appears employees benefited from the donated money. What’s not clear is if they had layaways already or simply used the money to shop. It’s also unclear if the foundation knew about and/or approved employee use of the money.
“We have determined the store did not handle the transaction in keeping with Walmart’s guidelines and have taken corrective action,” Walmart spokesperson Delia Garcia said to TCPalm last week.
Layways were at $60,000 when the donation came in, and Garcia told TCPalm that a “representative” of the foundation, as opposed to the foundation itself, approved of employees receiving a benefit from the money. Whether that’s from the $20,000 difference or more is unclear.
Over 300 layaway accounts were covered by the donation. The store manager and the spokesperson both would not say whether those accounts included items previously purchased on layaway by employees. Neither would say how many employees received a benefit, or whether any employees who potentially did so were managers.
Khalil Mack was unaware of how the donation money was being used.
An employee who did not benefit from the money blew the whistle and told company brass.
Walmart did not provide comment on whether employees were disciplined, but Chicago’s Fox 32 reported that managers and employees were suspended during the investigation.
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