GREENE — What would you do if your debit card didn’t work as you were checking out at the grocery store with a cart full of food? 

Tom Kelsey of Greene had to ask himself just that Sunday afternoon.

“I was at the IGA, getting some groceries with my daughter,” he said. “I was in line and my debit card wouldn’t work.”

He said he didn’t know what to do.

“Here you are with a full cart, what do you do?” he said. “Do I push my cart, do I put the food away?”

Then the man in line behind him said, “I got it.”

Kelsey was shocked that this man who didn’t know him would pay for his groceries. 

“It was $100 — not a little $10 thing,” he said. 

Kelsey said he waited outside the store for the guy to come out, and he asked for his address so he could repay the money. 

The man said he wouldn’t take it.

Scott Bartholomew, 46, of Greene was the good Samaritan who helped Kelsey. 

Kelsey said he had gone to the store to get wood pellets.

“As cold as it was that night, I wouldn’t have had any pellets,” he said. “I had two bags of them in my cart.” 

He said he hopes to catch up with Bartholomew someday to repay him. Kelsey said he wanted to share his story to acknowledge and appreciate what this man did for him. 

“It’s good to know there are still good people like that in the world.”

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