Tia Molphus had two sick children at home when she and her daughter, Jimisha, went into Corner Market Thursday afternoon for some soup.

They weren’t expecting to have their day brightened by strangers paying for their groceries.

When Mutual Credit Union approached them, Jimisha couldn’t believe what was happening.

“It makes me feel good to see other people helping people,” she said.

As part of International Credit Union Day, Mutual Credit Union celebrated with a “People Helping People” theme and ventured into the community paying for customer’s groceries.

The credit union spent Wednesday and Thursday in Vicksburg giving people’s budgets a break.

It was an emotional experience for customers as they hugged and thanked — often with tears in their eyes — the bankers for taking care of their basic needs.

Mutual Credit Union Marketing Director Susan Mandarino picked customers at random and tried not to profile customers. She encouraged her team to focus on people with everyday family needs in their carts, such as diapers, eggs, milk and bread.

“We’ve had a really good reaction. It’s probably been about 60 people so far we’ve purchased groceries for, ” Mandarino said. “We’ve had some people with $8 worth of groceries and we had to turn them around and make them get more and we had some people with $200 worth of groceries.”

The most rewarding part of this experience for Mandarino and her staff was the hugs and the reactions of customers.

“Just getting hugs and seeing in their eyes that they’re not used to people treating them nicely,” Mandarino said.

“They haven’t been treated like that in a long time, if ever. So maybe it’ll spread through the community and have a positive change.”

Just like Molphus and her daughter, people were in shock and disbelief about the gesture and some thought they were involved in a prank. There were also customers who turned down Mutual Credit Union’s help and told them to bless other people who needed it more than they did.

Tanya Kilcrease was stunned when going through the checkout line at Kroger, and thought the gesture was a stunt.

“I’m just so overwhelmed. I don’t know what to say,” Kilcrease said.

She was grocery shopping for her disabled sister and, after browsing at a previous store, came to Kroger after seeing sales in the newspaper. Kilcrease said her sister would be thrilled when she finds out her grocery money has been extended through the month.

Thursday was a rough day for Adrianne Smith and she felt blessed to receive help from Mutual Credit Union. Smith went to Kroger to pick up some juice, eggs and crackers to help her get over a stomach virus had been battling all week.

Smith said it was a good relief to receive this surprise.

“I can pay it forward to someone else and that’s what it’s all about,” Smith said. “I just want to thank Mutual Credit Union for blessing me.”